The Role of Genealogy in the Jewish Community

This blog article, based on an article written by Gary Mokotoff, and originally published in AVOTAYNU Magazine, discusses the transformation of Jewish genealogy from a simple hobby into a respected discipline that provides significant benefits to the Jewish community and society at large.

Shifting Perception of Genealogy

• Past View: Genealogists were initially viewed by the world, and especially by librarians and archivists, as mere hobbyists who were not to be taken seriously. In the late 1970s and early 1980s researchers were cautioned not to mention they were genealogists, with some even being turned away from archives as not being serious historians.

  
  

• Current View: People started to take genealogists seriously. This shift was evidenced by:

  
  

  • The formation of the organization "Librarians Serving Genealogists," replacing the defunct "Librarians Avoiding Genealogists".

    
    

  • Resource facilities, even those that do not traditionally cater to genealogy, including the U.S. National Archives, National Archives of Canada, state archives, and Jewish institutions like the Leo Baeck Institute and the YIVO Institute, have web pages specifically for genealogists.

    
    

  • Genealogy has been one of the five most requested areas on the U.S. National Archives website.

    
    

Genealogy's Contributions to Society

Jewish genealogists are contributing to society in ways that go beyond the individual hobbyist:

• Genealogists as Historians: Genealogists are producing quality historical works recognized by scholarly institutions. The discipline teaches skills in documenting events, recognizing worthwhile facts, and evaluating evidence, which are then applied to Jewish history. Examples of "hobbyists-turned-scholarly authors" include:

  
  

  • Melody Amsel (a flute player) writing a history and yizkor book, The Jews of Stropkov.

    
    

  • Peter Cullman (a goldsmith) writing a history of the Jews of Schneidermühl.

    
    

  • Where Once We Walked, considered a standard gazetteer of towns in Central and Eastern Europe, was written by an amateur genealogist psychologist and a businessman.

    
    

• Genealogists as Information Sources: Genealogists create valuable databases for finding ancestors that are also used by archivists and historians. For example, the ShtetlSeeker database, created by Avotaynu, Inc. and listing towns in Central and Eastern Europe with latitude and longitude, proved valuable to the YIVO Institute.

  
  

• Genealogy as a Scholarly Discipline: The International Institute of Jewish Genealogy associated with Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was created. The goal was to transform Jewish genealogy into a "recognized academic discipline and sub-science" within Jewish studies, including Holocaust studies.

  
  

• Genealogists as Detectives (People Finders): Genealogists are the community's experts in finding both the living and the dead. They know how to locate people using resources like birth, marriage, death, census, immigration, and naturalization records, as well as the Internet and professional contacts. There are wonderful instances where genealogists helped Jews in the former Soviet Union find American relatives and assisted Holocaust survivors in finding their identity and living family members.

Genealogy has come a long way. It is now a recognized academic discipline and sub-science within the whole spectrum of Jewish studies. We have many ways to serve the Jewish community including as historians, compilers of historical data, and as people finders.