The last part of Season 6 of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates begins on October 13 8PM/7 Central on your local PBS station in the United States Please look at the schedule for your local PBS station as dates and times may vary by local PBS Station.

I am not certain if it will also show in Canada.  See: https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/

For the schedule go to: https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/tv-schedule and scroll down to Episode 11 Fashion Roots with Diane Von Fursenberg, Narcisco Rodriguea and RuPaul Charles.  Episodes 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 with their dates and celebrities are listed.  There will be 27 celebrities covered in this season. Season 7 begins in December.

• Fashion’s Roots” with Diane Von Furstenberg, Narciso Rodriguez, RuPaul
• “Breaking the Silences” with Gayle King, Jordan Peele, Issa Rae
• “DNA Mysteries” with Ann Curry, Téa Leoni, Joe Madison
• “War Stories” with Kehinde Wiley, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader
• “Flight” with Lupita Nyong’o, Lidia Bastianich, Scarlett Johannsson
• “Coming to America” with Nancy Pelosi, Norah O’Donnell, Zac Posen

Season Six is provided by Ancestry, Johnson & Johnson and AT&T.

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

Shalom,

During September, in the periods between the High Holidays, we saw a great deal of intensive activity within the Yizkor Book Project. Still, please understand that I am far from complaining, as the high interest and willingness to be involved in the YB Project is the “fuel” that keeps us going.

Looking over recently updated translation projects, I saw that quite a few of them are just a hair's breadth away from being completed and I’m quite certain that next month’s report will bear witness to this.

This time, for instance, I’m pleased to inform you that the Rivne, Ukraine book Rowno; a memorial to the Jewish community of Rowno, Volin  is now completely translated. This project was, over the years, dedicatedly led by Ann Goldberg and it recently received some additional support from Anita Gabbay who assisted in seeing its successful completion. We owe a debt of gratitude to Ann and Anita for the time and  efforts they placed into achieving this worthy goal.

Quite frequently, and especially after my monthly reports go out, I receive messages from people wishing to see the English translation of a particular Yizkor book. Often, upon checking, I find that we do have a project set up for the book but, unfortunately, no one has ever stepped forward to take on this translation project.

From my experience and the feedback I receive from coordinators, a great deal of satisfaction is achieved from taking on such a translations project, seeing it take shape and, of course, the greatest satisfaction is when the project is successfully completed. So the moral of the story is that if you find that the Yizkor book with connections to your family doesn’t have an active coordinator, please be in contact with me and I’ll go through with you what is involved in taking such a project and it’s something that may only involve a couple of hours a month.

It is clear that the translation of the Yizkor books provides us with an insight into the families and communities that have been lost forever. It is also a legacy that we can pass on down to future generations, so these memories will not be lost.

Anyway, let’s look at what we have accomplished over September 2020.

New book

Whilst the Yizkor Project already includes around 1,000 translation projects, from time to time, we are fortunate to receive the opportunity to set up a project for a book that has yet to be added to our collection.

So, this past month we setup a project for:

Rypin, Poland (Rypin; a memorial to the Jewish Community of Rypin-Poland)

Initially, we have placed the English section online but we do have plans to expand the project further.

What we would like is someone to take on this project and coordinate the translation of this book. If your family came from this community and you are out for a challenge, as explained above, please be in contact with me.

New Translation Fund

The translation of a Yizkor Book generally involves a considerable monetary outlay and we set up these Translation Funds so that all those people interested in seeing a particular book translated, can contribute as much as they are comfortable with in a combined effort to see the book translated. Note that for US citizens, donations to these funds are tax deductible.

This past month, one such fund was set up:

• Wysokie-Mazowieckie, Poland The “Wysokie-Mazowieckie; Memorial Book” was coordinated in the past by  Ada Holtzman z”l and  Sandy Levin  has arranged for the fund to be setup to enable further translations of this book to be carried out. If you have interest in this community, your financial support to this project would be very welcome.
  
  

New entries

The following are the new entries that have been placed online during September 2020.

• Gostynin, Poland (from “Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Volume IV”)
• Izbica Kujawska, Poland (from “Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Volume I”)
• Lyntupy, Belarus Through the Eyes of a Child – My Childhood in Lyntupy (a memoir)
• Soroksár, Hungary (from “Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Hungary”)
  
  

Yizkor Book updates

This month, 21 existing projects were updated and they were:

·  Będzin, Poland (A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Bendin)

·  Biała Podlaska, Poland (Book of Biala Podlaska)

·  Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyy, Ukraine (Akkerman and the Towns of its District; Memorial Book) 

·  Biłgoraj, Poland (Destruction of Bilgoraj)

·  Braslaw, Belarus (Darkness and desolation)

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

·  Dubno, Ukraine (Dubno; a Memorial to the Jewish community of Dubno, Wolyn)

·  Gąbin, Poland (Gombin: The Life and Destruction of a Jewish Town in Poland)

·  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)

·  Kurów, Poland (Yiskor book in memoriam of our hometown Kurow)

·  Kutno, Belarus (Kutno and Surroundings Book)

·  Nyasvizh, Belarus (The Nesvizh Yizkor Book)

·  Pruzhany, Belarus (Memorial Book of Five Destroyed Communities)

·  Radomysl Wielki, Poland (Radomysl Wielki and Neighborhood)

·  Rivne, Ukraine (Rowno; a memorial to the Jewish community of Rowno, Volin)

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

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

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

·  Zinkiv, Ukraine  (Zinkov Memorial Book)

Volunteers

We are continually looking for volunteers to join the YB Project to assist us in maintaining and expanding the YB Project. In particular, if you are able to translate from either Hebrew or Yiddish to English, we would love to hear from you.

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.
  
  

Chag Sukkot Sameach (Happy Sukkot),

Lance Ackerfeld

Director of Special Projects - Yizkor Books

JewishGen.org

lackerfeld@...