A rich and varied roster of speakers will be presenting during
the five and a half days of the 33rd IAJGS International
Conference on Jewish Genealogy to be held in Boston beginning
August 4.

Attendees will be able to choose >from 250 programs on seven
different tracks covering a wide range of topics including a
beginner's track on August 4/5, as well as computer tracks and a
film festival. The preliminary program (subject to change) will
be posted on the conference website on Tuesday, April 16th
(http://www.iajgs2013.org/program_schedule.cfm).

Many IAJGS Lifetime Achievement award winners, the luminaries of
Jewish genealogy, will give talks, including Steve Morse, Miriam
Weiner, Peter Lande, Jeff Malka, Hal Bookbinder, Warren Blatt,
Michael Tobias, and Stanley Diamond. Archivists >from Belgium, the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, and Ukraine will be giving the
latest information about doing research in their countries.
Historians and experts >from England, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania,
Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the U.S. will provide the historical
context to our ancestors' lives and the methodologies to find them.

Unique to the Boston location of the conference will be several
talented local experts who have never presented at previous IAJGS
conferences. The keynote speaker will be Aaron Lanksy, the famous
and dynamic founder of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA.
Ellen Smith, co-author of The Jews of Boston and a well-known
historian, museum curator, and professor at Brandeis University,
will give a talk as well as conduct walking tours of Boston's
Jewish historical sites. Sharon Pucker Rivo, Director of the
National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University, will
present "Jews in Focus" about the important Jewish role in film.
Genealogical researchin the New England states will be featured,
including immigration to the Port of Boston.

The annual Lucille Gudis Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Jewish
Genealogical Society of New York, will feature two noted historians,
Annie Polland, Education Vice President at the Tenement Museum in
New York, and Daniel Soyer, professor at Fordham University. They
are co-authors of Emerging Metropolis -- the second volume of the
2012 award-winning book, City of Promises: History of Jews in New
York, which describes New York's transformation into a Jewish city.
They will speak together about the book and separately. Annie will
talk about the "Adaptation of Ritual," the complex adjustments
immigrant ancestors made to succeed, and Daniel will talk about
immigrant "landsmanschaften." Zvi Gitelman, Professor of Judaic
Studies at the University of Michigan and author of several important
books on Jewish ethnicity and identity among Eastern European Jews,
will present "Litvak-Galitsianer Wars, Jewish Cultural Geography."

In addition to updates on DNA, Holocaust research, and immigration,
areas of new focus include Sephardic Jews, Jewish cooking and
cookbooks, and a panel on cemetery restoration in both Europe and the
United States.

There also will be many hands-on computer workshops (for both Mac and
PC) and workshops on photo identification and preservation, on document
restoration, and on various languages (German, Russian, Polish and
Hebrew). Continuing the tradition of excellence of previous conferences,
there will be an Exhibitor Hall, a Resource Center, author events, and
book signings throughout the week.

from the first day's SHARE Fair, featuring an expanded number of Special

Interest Groups (SIGs) and Birds of a Feather (BOFs) as well as local
archives and historical societies, to the many programs offered all week
long, attendees will have trouble choosing which to attend >from Sunday
morning to Friday noon.

For more detailed information about the programs and to register, visit
<www.iajgs2013.org>. Early registration discounts end on April 30, so
register today.

Florence Schumacher
Publicity Chair
33rd IAJGS Conference on International Genealogy