Israel’s Genealogy Collections

It’s common in Jewish genealogy to focus most of our attention on Eastern Europe, where many of our ancestors came from. But as Rose Feldman likes to point out, the term “Wandering Jews” was coined for a reason.

As one of the leaders of the Israel Genealogy Research Association, she oversees a massive — and growing — database collection of records from Jewish communities around the Middle East and beyond, some dating back to the 1800s, which she will show how to access. Based in Israel, the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) has assembled databases with more than 3 million records, most relating to families who lived in, or immigrated to, Israel before and after World War II. If you’re searching for family members with a connection to Israel, this may be a place to start.

The records themselves can include anything from turn-of-the-century school ledgers in Morocco, to thousands of British Mandate marriage certificates. Overall, there are census, military, election, immigration and other vital records from more than 170 geographic regions, many housed such small archives that they have never been online before. While they’re mainly focused on Jewish communities that migrated to Israel, the records themselves can have broader reach. The databases are searchable in both English and Hebrew, and registration is free on the group’s website, genealogy.org.il. But to access the records themselves, you have to be a paid subscriber.

Rose Feldman is in charge of developing new databases for Israel Genealogy Research Association [IGRA]. She has lectured at eleven conferences of the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Association [IAJGS] starting in 2003, at various annual seminars and meetings in Israel and the US. She is also the author of numerous publications. In 2017 Rose was the recipient of IAJGS Award for Volunteer of the Year. She was one of the three coordinators of the Montefiore Censuses Project which received the 2014 IAJGS Program Award.

The program will take place on-line via Zoom. For more information and to register go to

https://www.mnjgs.org/event

Questions can be emailed to MNJGS at https://www.mnjgs.org/contact
Members are free, non-members $5. Payment can be made at
https://www.mnjgs.org/support-us

Details

Date:
January 26
Time:
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Event Categories
Community + CalendarIsraelJewish + Lifestyle
Cost:
Free – $5
Event Categories:
,
Website:
mnjgs.org/event

Venue

Virtual Event
United States

Organizer

Minnesota Jewish Geneological Society