by Maura Lerner Fisher
One of the joys of genealogy, for me, is discovering my family in historical records I never thought I’d have a chance to see, or in some cases, even knew existed.
The challenge for many of us, as we search for information about our ancestors, is knowing where to look when we’re not even sure what we’re looking for.
That’s where the Center for Jewish History — the newest associate member of IAJGS — can help.
The Center is home to some of the most extensive collections of Jewish archives outside Israel. Now, by becoming a part of IAJGS, it hopes to raise its profile as a resource for genealogists.
“It’s such a substantial organization within the field of Jewish genealogy,” said Jenny Rappaport, the Center’s head genealogist. “We want to make other member organizations aware that we exist. And we would love to help them.”
Since it was founded 25 years ago, the Center for Jewish History has become a one-stop-shop for exploring the collections of five major organizations: the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Leo Baeck Institute, the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation and the Yeshiva University Museum.
The Center also provides help in searching those archives through the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute.
The archives span more than three centuries and include records from groups focused on Jewish immigrants, Holocaust survivors, and Jewish life across the globe.
Did your ancestor grow up in a Hebrew orphanage? Join a burial society in New York? Live in a Displaced Persons camp after World War II? You might find them in the vast collections housed within the Center’s headquarters in lower Manhattan.
As an experiment, I typed in “Rohatyn” — the name of my grandmother’s village in Ukraine — on the search page of the Center’s website (cjh.org). And found, among other things, the archives of a landsmanschaft (benevolent society) founded by Rohatyner immigrants in New York; as well as a link to a haunting 1932 home movie of Rohatyn, a decade before its Jewish population was wiped out. I was able to watch the short film with the click of a button.
Not everything is accessible online — much of the archival material is in physical storage or on microfilm — but you can find out what records exist there, and how to access them.
Susan Weinberg, the president of IAJGS, said she hopes more members will discover the Center, and take advantage of what it has to offer, now that it’s officially an associate member of the organization.
“They’re in a key spot with some really meaningful resources for members of our JGSs,” she said. “It’s a good fit.”
To find out more about the Center for Jewish History and its programs, go to cjh.org. For a list of some of the searchable collections, go to genealogy-collections.cjh.org/familycollections.php
To send an inquiry to the center’s genealogy center, go to cjh.org/research/genealogy-support.
