A photograph, the old saying goes, is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, however, a photograph’s worth cannot be measured in words. By capturing an ephemeral moment in exquisite detail, a photograph can be far more articulate than language. Irreplaceable images of our culture from days past can be infinitely instructive as to how we lived.…
Tag: genealogy
Rabbinic ancestry? Prove it first
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Arthur Kurzweil, the pioneering American Jewish genealogist, tells a remarkable story about how a passing remark from his mother’s cousin, Maurice, led him to a significant family discovery. Maurice recalled being told after playing a childhood prank, “That’s no way to behave, especially since you are an ‘ainicle’ of the Stropkover Rebbe.” Learning that the…
Of Berliners, Oppenheimers and Rothschilds
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From about 1840 to roughly 1900, one sort of Jewish immigrant was so familiar in North American cities that he was caricatured in novels, newspapers articles and comic strips. According to the stereotype, he was a prosperous merchant, garbed in bowler hat, business suit, and thick moustache. He manufactured or traded in pianos, fine watches,…
The remarkable Russian Consular Records
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One night in November 1933, a convoy of US Army trucks pulled up in front of a locked and deserted Russian government compound in Washington DC to undertake a mission that was both hushed and rushed. Obeying official orders from higher up, a platoon of American soldiers broke into the premises and began removing boxes…
Old news is new again
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At some point in their lives, nearly everyone in our modern world gets into the newspaper, even if only for a birth, marriage or death announcement. That’s why the newly-emerging searchable electronic archives of publications like the New York Times, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail constitute a giant leap forward for genealogists,…
A search for six of the Six Million
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Sometimes when author Daniel Mendelsohn was a boy, elderly relatives would cry at the sight of him, so great was his resemblance to his great-uncle Shmiel Jaeger. From some handwriting on the back of a photograph, Mendelsohn knew that Shmiel and his wife Ester and their daughters Lorka, Frydka, Ruchele and Bronia had been “killed…
A worthy guide to rabbinic genealogical research
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Israeli genealogist Chaim Freedman gained much expertise in rabbinic genealogy by compiling the family tree of the legendary Vilna Gaon, which was published as Eliyahu’s Branches in 1997 on the 200th anniversary of the great sage’s death. In his new treatise, Beit Rabbanan: Sources of Rabbinical Genealogy, he attempts to impart some of his knowledge to…
Jewish genealogy in Pennsylvania
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Anyone with the surname Eisen (which means ‘iron’) knows that Jews have had an historic involvement in the steel trade. From Shtetl to Milltown: Litvaks, Hungarians, and Galizianers in Western Pennsylvania, 1875-1925 by Robert Perlman is a thorough local history that chronicles the rise of various Jewish communities in a sprinkling of towns in and…
An organization that redeems lost Jews
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A New York rabbinical court made a precedent-setting halakhic decision last summer that could eventually pave the way for legions of “lost” Jews to return to Judaism. The case revolves around Wendy Armstrong, a real estate professional in St. Louis, Mo., who was raised in a Christian home and attended a Methodist church as a…
Conversation thrives on JewishGen discussion group
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Just as the medical profession has debated the ethics of using data from horrendous Nazi medical experiments, the Jewish genealogical community recently discussed the ethics of using a Nazi census of “non-Teutonic” people in Germany in 1938-39. For the most part, the medical community has wisely branded the Nazi’s medical sadism as completely inadmissable to…
