JewishGen is pleased to announce its newly designed website at
www.JewishGen.org. JewishGen commissioned the creation of a new
landing page to serve as a launching point for the main components
of the website. The site is built on a modern, secure platform,
which is beneficial for a number of reasons, including:

*It has a more intuitive and user-friendly design,
*It is mobile-responsive, and
*It has a more familiar platform, which will make it easier to
find qualified consultants, contractors and volunteers to help in
the future.

This is not the final plan. It's a stop-gap redesign that addresses
some of the shortcomings of the website by creating a visually
appealing, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate homepage that
researchers can utilize to find key components on the JewishGen site.
While approximately one million unique visitors were attracted to the
JewishGen site last year, only a small portion of this group actually
registered or became regular users. JewishGen anticipates that an
enhanced website will improve these results.

Specifically, it's hoped the new landing page will help guide
researchers to:

*Search the online collection
*Locate ancestral communities
*Explore life in their ancestral communities
*Join discussion groups
*Volunteer, and
*Donate.

Over the next two months, JewishGen will begin crafting a proper
technology mstrategy, which will include the website and databases.
In the meantime, however, this new landing page will immediately help
researchers, while also demonstrating JewishGen's strategic focus.

Thank you to everyone on the staff and volunteer leadership team for
their suggestions and contributions to making this happen. Special
thanks to Scott Seidenstock, Gary Sandler, and Warren Blatt.

Please enjoy the site and visit www.JewishGen.org now. Feedback and
suggestions will be most welcome!

Nancy Siegel (San Francisco, CA, USA)
Communications Coordinator
JewishGen.org