Dear Friends,

JewishGen had a very successful and productive experience at the 37th
annual IAJGS Conference (which was held July 23-28 in Orlando, FL),
offering an outstanding variety of sessions, workshops, and luncheons
throughout its duration.

In the coming weeks, we will be posting highlights of our activity,
including a review of some of the major announcements which were first
unveiled at the conference. In this issue, I would like to focus on
something that we are extremely excited about, and that is JewishGen's
first ever Ignition and Signature Grants program, which aims to assist
Jewish genealogical and historical societies, and other community
based organizations, to undertake and complete research projects which
are delayed or cannot be initiated due to lack of funding.

Our goal is to stimulate a variety of new initiatives, productivity and
creativity which will result in additional records being accessible on
JewishGen, and to expand this effort beyond our traditional sources of
material. As a result, all Jewish genealogical and historical societies,
as well as any community based organizations, such as a synagogues,
schools and libraries are encouraged to apply. These projects can focus
on primary or secondary records, and are not restricted by any specific
geographic location.

Examples of possible projects include:
1) A synagogue might wish to photograph and index their memorial plaques,
Yizkor lists and burial records.
2) A Jewish genealogical society might wish to index birth, marriage,
engagement, and death notices >from a local Jewish newspaper.
3) A community group may want to initiate an indexing project comprised
of Jewish vital records >from a particular city.
4) Maybe there are projects that we have never even considered!

Therefore, in order to stimulate growth, innovation, and access to
records, JewishGen will be offering ignition grants up to $5,000, and
signature grants of up to $25,000 for exceptional applications.

from the beginning, JewishGen has been the pioneer and the leader of

Jewish genealogy. Our databases are unmatched, and we have innovated
new tools, new methods, and new concepts which have benefited thousands
of people. This new initiative follows in that tradition, and we look
forward to seeing what type of applications come in.

The application process opens on August 15. For more information,
please visit: http://www.jewishgen.org/jewishgen/grantsflyer.pdf

Please stay tuned for more updates!

Avraham Groll
Director
JewishGen.org