Jewish Genealogical Society of Toronto

Lithuania, Latvia & Belarus SIG

Speaker: Patrick Munits

Virtual Meeting: Join from Home

Thursday, 11 February 2021, at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Patrick Munits’ presentation will include:

• Immigration and Naturalization records in Latvia from the interwar period
• Recent developments with regards to accessibility of documents stored in Latvian archives for the years between WWI and WWII.
• Overview of period passports, and other types of documents from Latvia and nearby countries that can be found in the archive and are now accessible on the web.
• Presentation of techniques to identify and confirm possible missing relatives.

Patrick is a first-generation immigrant. He was born in Riga, Latvia during the Soviet period and for a few decades was the only kid in town with such a name. Patrick researches his Ashkenazi and Latvian ancestors. Much of his family information was lost and obscured during the Holocaust and Stalin’s purges. Over the recent years Patrick was able to uncover many facts previously unknown to his family, all thanks to newly-accessible archives on the Internet. Patrick finds joy whenever he is able to use his native Russian speaking ability together with his professional IT skills to link records from Eastern Europe to immigrant families in North America and elsewhere.

To register, please go to

https://zoom.us/j/95961496155?pwd=VCtscFhvbldNZHNmbXNqMW9CZW5NQT09

You will then receive an immediate acknowledgement plus the link to access the event.

Please keep the acknowledgement email when you receive it as it contains your personalized link to join the Zoom meeting. 

Please make a voluntary donation in the box titled  $ | Other | at this link  https://canadahelps.org/en/dn/428

JGS Toronto is a registered charity so Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt.

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Jerry Scherer

VP, Communications

jscherer@...

Shalom,

Can someone please tell me where January 2021 disappeared? It seems that with the non-stop rush of activity in the Yizkor Book Project, the month passed by me in the blink of an eye and I what remains for me is to let you know a little of what was achieved in this fleeting month.

I would firstly like to share with you a very welcome initiative by Laurence Broun, the Mizocz Yizkor Book Translations Coordinator. He has arranged for graduate-level, foreign language students at George Washington University to take on translations from the Mizozc book. The first translations, reviewed by both Laurence and the students’ advisor, are now available online and this undertaking continues on.

Needless to say, for most of our projects we aren’t able to find skilled volunteer translators and we do require the services of professional translators, involving considerable sums of money - usually, upwards of $25 a page. Since the books are hundreds of pages in length, it is clear that to translate a whole book the outlay is, indeed, considerable. For that reason, we have set up dedicated Translation Funds so that people with connections to these lost communities can be part of the group effort to financially support the  translation of these books.

Just recently, a number of such funds were set up for the following books:

·  Makow Mazowiecki, Poland (Memorial book of the community of Maków-Mazowiecki)

·  Valozhyn, Belarus (Wolozin; the book of the city and of the Etz Hayyim Yeshiva)

·  Warszawa, Poland (Jewish Warsaw that was; a Yiddish literary anthology)

If any of these communities are dear to your heart and would like to donate to help see the translation of the particular Yizkor book become a reality, please go to the Yizkor Book Translation Funds page.

For quite a few of our projects, large amounts of new material were added in January bringing them ever closer to the goal of completely translating the books. I am quite confident that in coming months, we’ll see quite the completion of quite a few projects.

The very large quantity of updates, as always, was carried out by our hard-working volunteer htmlers - Jason Halgarten and Max Heffler who, day in and day out, add in the new material to the web pages, and have been doing the same for quite a number of years. They do deserve our grateful thanks for their continued dedication to the Yizkor Book Project.

Now for the January updates:

Yizkor Book updates

This month, 30 existing projects were updated and they were:

·  Baia Mare, Romania (A monument to the Jews of Nagybanya, Nagysomkut, Felsobanya, Kapolnok Monostor and vicinity)

·  Bessarabia (The Jews in Bessarabia; between the world wars 1914-1940, volume I)

·  Biłgoraj, Poland (Destruction of Bilgoraj)

·  Braslaw, Belarus (Darkness and desolation)

·  Chelm, Poland (Commemoration book Chelm)

·  Ciechanowiec, Poland (Ciechanoviec-Bialystok District; Memorial and Records)

·  Dzyatlava, Belarus (A memorial to the Jewish community of Zhetel)

·  Hrubieszow, Poland (Memorial Book of Hrubieshov)

·  Hlybokaye, Belarus(The Destruction of Globokie)

·  Jaroslaw, Poland (Jaroslaw Book: a Memorial to Our Town)

·  Kamyanyets, Belarus (Memorial Book of Kamenets Litovsk, Zastavye, and Colonies)

·  Kolki, Ukraine (Summoned from the Ashes)

·  Krynki, Poland (Memorial book of Krynki)

·  Kutno, Poland (Kutno and Surroundings Book)

·  Lithuania  (Lita)

·  Makow Mazowiecki, Poland (Memorial book of the community of Maków-Mazowiecki)

·  Mizoch, Ukraine (Memorial Book of Mizocz)

·  Przedecz, Poland (Memorial book to the Holocaust victims of the city of Pshaytsh)

·  Radomsko, Poland (Memorial book of the community of Radomsk and vicinity)

·  Rafalovka, Ukraine (Memorial book for the towns of Old Rafalowka, New Rafalowka, Olizarka, Zoludzk and vicinity)

·  Siedlce, Poland (On the ruins of my home; the destruction of Siedlce)

·  Siedlce, Poland (Memorial book of the community of Siedlce)

·  Slonim, Belarus Memorial Book of Slonim)

·  Stowbtsy, Belarus (Memorial volume of Steibtz-Swerznie and the neighboring villages Rubezhevitz, Derevna, Nalibok)

·  Telšiai, Lithuania (Telsiai Book)

·  Ustilug, Ukraine (The growth and destruction of the community of Uscilug)

·  Valozhyn, Belarus (Wolozin; the book of the city and of the Etz Hayyim Yeshiva)

·  Wołomin, Poland (Volomin; a memorial to the Jewish community of Volomin)

·  Warszawa, Poland (Book of Warsaw)

·  Zolochiv, Ukraine   (The City of Zloczow)

New entries

The following are new entries placed online during January.

• Gargždai, Lithuania (from “Lithuanian Jewry, Volume 4”)
• Pilviškiai, Lithuania (from “Lithuania”)
• Żychlin, Poland (from “Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Volume I”)
•  

New book

The following is a new complete book placed online during January.

• Bar, Ukraine (Town of Bar: Jewish Pages Through The Prism Of Time)
  
  
  

In conjunction with the complete translation of this book going online, this is one of the books published last month by the Yizkor Books in Print (YBIP) Project.

New Yizkor Books in Print

Speaking of publishing, the well oil machine known as the Yizkor Books in Print Project has once again published a remarkable number of new books last month with translations from the Yizkor Book Project. The volunteers in this project, ably led by Joel Alpert, are worthy of our thanks for their dedication and, especially their talent in presenting us with books which respectfully immortalize our lost communities.

The following are the books that were published in January:

• Bar Ukraine - Town of Bar: Jewish Pages Through The Prism Of Time
• Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyy, Ukraine - Akkerman and the Towns of its District; Memorial Book
• Czyżew-Osada, Poland - Czyzewo Memorial Book
• Gąbin, Poland - Memorial Book of Gombin, Poland
• Kobryn, Belarus - Book of Kobrin
  
  

If you are interested in any of these books or any of the others that have been made available, please go to the YBIP main page shown below.

Important links

Before ending this report, here are some important links to note:

• Yizkor Book Translations Index  A listing of all the community books we have online.
• Yizkor Books in Print Project To learn all about this project and see what published books are available for purchase.
• Yizkor Book Translation Funds Where your financial support will assist in seeing more translations go online.

All the best,

Lance Ackerfeld

Director of Special Projects - Yizkor Books

JewishGen.org

lackerfeld@...

23andMe has signed an agreement to merge with the VG Acquisition Corporation.  VG acquisition is a special-purpose acquisition company sponsored by Virgin Group and the ultimate purpose it become publicly traded through Virgin’s acquisition on the New York Stock Exchange. The transaction is estimated to be complete during the second quarter.

The merger places 23andMe's enterprise value at approximately $3.5 billion, the company said. The transaction is expected to deliver up to $759 million of gross proceeds through the contribution of up to $509 million of cash held in VG Acquisition's trust account and a concurrent $250 million private placement of common stock, priced at $10 per share. Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson and 23andMe Cofounder Anne Wojcicki are each investing $25 million in the placement, and will be joined by leading institutional investors, including funds managed by Fidelity Management & Research, Altimeter Capital, Casdin Capital, and Foresite Capital.

As part of the transaction, 23andMe's existing equity holders will roll 100 percent of their equity into the combined company, and current shareholders of 23andMe are expected to maintain 81 percent proforma ownership of the combined company, the firm said.

To read the press release go to:

https://mediacenter.23andme.com/press-releases/23andme-merges-with-vgac/

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee