A shtetl or shtetel is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The term is used in the contexts of peculiarities of former East European Jewish societies as islands within the surrounding non-Jewish populace, and bears certain socio-economic and cultural connotations. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas that constituted the 19th-century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire as well as in Congress Poland, Austrian Galicia, Kingdom of Romania and in the Kingdom of Hungary.
Ivano-Frankivsk, formerly Stanyslaviv, is a city located in Western Ukraine. It is the administrative centre of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast and Ivano-Frankivsk Raion. Ivano-Frankivsk hosts the administration of Ivano-Frankivsk urban hromada. Its population is 238,196.
Kremenets is a city in Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kremenets Raion (district), and lies 18 km north-east of the great Pochayiv Monastery. The city is situated in the historic region of Volhynia and features the 12th-century Kremenets Castle. It hosts the administration of Kremenets urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: 20,674.
Daitch–Mokotoff Soundex is a phonetic algorithm invented in 1985 by Jewish genealogists Gary Mokotoff and Randy Daitch. It is a refinement of the Russell and American Soundex algorithms designed to allow greater accuracy in matching of Slavic and Yiddish surnames with similar pronunciation but differences in spelling.
Gary Mokotoff (born April 26, 1937) is an author, lecturer, and Jewish genealogy researcher. Mokotoff is the publisher of AVOTAYNU, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy, and is the former President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). He is the creator of the JewishGen's Jewish Genealogical Family Finder and the Jewish Genealogical People Finder. He co-authored the Daitch–Mokotoff Soundex system. Mokotoff is co-author of Where We Once Walked: A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust.
Aaron Philip Hart was a businessman in Lower Canada and one of the first Jews to settle in the colony. He is considered the father of Canadian Jewry. He was one of the founding members of Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal, a wealthy man with numerous landed estates, and the married father of four sons, including the future politician Ezekiel Hart, and four daughters.
Chechelnyk is an urban-type settlement on the Savranka River in Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine, near Odesa Oblast, located in the historic region of Podolia. Chechelnyk was formerly the administrative center of Chechelnyk Raion, although it is now administrated under Tulchyn Raion. The economy is based on the food industry, especially alcohol production. Population: 4,785
Arthur Kurzweil is an American author, educator, editor, writer, publisher, and illusionist.
Radzanów is a village in Mława County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland, approximately 28 kilometres (17 mi) south-west of Mława and 101 km (63 mi) north-west of Warsaw. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Radzanów.
The Jewish cemetery of Khotyn, Ukraine.
JewishGen is a non-profit organization founded in 1987 as an international electronic resource for Jewish genealogy. In 2003, JewishGen became an affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. It provides amateur and professional genealogists with the tools to research their Jewish family history and heritage.
Jewish genealogy is the study of Jewish families and the tracing of their lineages and history. The Pentateuchal equivalent for "genealogies" is "toledot" (generations). In later Hebrew, as in Aramaic, the term and its derivatives "yiḥus" and "yuḥasin" recur with the implication of legitimacy or nobility of birth. In Modern Hebrew, genealogy is generally referred to as "שורשים"/"shorashim", the Hebrew word for roots, or borrowing from the English, "גנאלוגי"/"genealogi".
Chamber of the Holocaust is a small Holocaust museum located on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Israel. It was Israel's first Holocaust museum.
Sallyann Amdur Sack is an American genealogist and psychologist, and editor of Avotaynu Magazine, a journal of Jewish genealogy and scholarship. Sack is the only genealogist listed in Jewish Women in America. She was instrumental in founding the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy, Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, and Avotaynu. Sack has chaired or co-chaired seven of the annual conferences on Jewish genealogy, authored seven books of use to genealogists and has consulted on numerous projects. A recipient of IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award, she resides in Bethesda, Maryland, where she is a clinical psychologist in private practice, having received her degrees from Harvard University and George Washington University.
The Jewish community of Oldenburg in northwest Germany was established as early as the 14th century. It existed consecutively ever since, except for occasion deportations by the local rulers of the Duchy of Oldenburg and the Holocaust, which annihilated the majority of Jews left in the city in the 1930s. Nevertheless, after the Holocaust, Jewish survivors have returned and resettled in the Oldenburg Jewish community, which nowadays operates actively within the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the fastest growing Jewish community in the world.
Yizkor books are memorial books commemorating a Jewish community destroyed during the Holocaust. The books are published by former residents or landsmanshaft societies as remembrances of homes, people and ways of life lost during World War II. Yizkor books usually focus on a town but may include sections on neighboring smaller communities.
Miriam Weiner is an American genealogist, author, and lecturer who specializes in the research of Jewish roots in Poland and the former Soviet Union. Weiner is considered to be one of the pioneers of contemporary Jewish genealogy through her work to open up archives and is described as a trail-blazing, highly respected guide and leading authority on archival holdings and resources in pre-war Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine.
Vivienne Roumani-Denn is an American oral historian and filmmaker. She created the first web site of the Jews of Libya and she is the director of critically acclaimed films The Last Jews of Libya and Out of Print.
