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The Author of 'The Family' Checks In With the Jewish Genealogical Society in Utah
As a latecomer and a relative newbie in Jewish genealogy, I have to admit I was a little apprehensive this July as I walked into the lobby of the Hilton Salt Lake City Center where the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies was holding its 34th annual conference. This was the tribe's gathering of the tribes, the big powwow for the umbrella organization that oversees 74 Jewish genealogical groups around the world.
Though I had devoted a good part of the last three years to researching and telling my own family's story, I really had no idea what to expect from a Jewish genealogical conference. Banks of computers occupied round the clock by googly-eyed family seekers? Tips on deciphering Hebrew headstones? A road map for navigating the labyrinth of JewishGen? Lively discussion and debate on Jewish history, the crisis in Gaza, the Ashkenazi-Sephardi divide? Passion, obsession, frustration, jubilation?
I found all of the above at the IAJGS conference - along with a hearty welcome. "Generosity is at the heart of this enterprise," Warren Blatt, managing director of JewishGen, told me. "Sharing is essential to JewishGen and the whole Jewish genealogical community." Based on four and a half action-packed days in Salt Lake City, I can add my heartfelt "amen." What really motivates Jewish genealogists, like all genealogists, is the burning desire to discover as much as they can about as many ancestors as possible. But the IAJGS conference made it abundantly clear that in the pursuit of their ancestors, Jewish genealogists train their laserlike research skills on every aspect of our people's culture and history.
Jewish genealogy starts with great-grandmother Chana from Chelm and ends with a sense of radiant awe at the diversity, tenacity, global dispersion and ingenuity of the people of the book (though these days the book is more likely to be a tablet, laptop, cell phone or, when all else fails, roll of microfilm).
My conference got off to an auspicious start. At the airport in Salt Lake City (chosen as the conference location because of the huge Family History Library run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, located just a couple...