Adapted from a talk delivered to the Annual Conference of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain October 2013<\/p>\n
Consider the following facts:<\/p>\n
As we all know only too well,\u00a0 a large proportion of the earliest records in some of these registers are Hebrew-only.\u00a0 We should also note that there is a clear lacuna in the LDS microfilm of the New Synagogue Marriage Registers,\u00a0 where there are no actual Marriage Records between October 1823 and the start of Civil Registration in August 1837.\u00a0 The Susser transcripts of the New Synagogue Ketubot run from 1823 to 1832, with a couple of earlier ones that overlap the marriages on the LDS microfilm. And there are a handful without dates,\u00a0 But we do not know how complete this register or set of documents was.\u00a0 And, in any event, that still leaves around five years without any New Synagogue marriage records whatsoever.\u00a0 And, of course, there are no microfilms specifically relating to New Synagogue\u00a0 deaths.<\/p>\n
Added to data from the foregoing microfilms, there are 47 Circumcision records in the Susser transcripts, that predate 1791 and Synagoguescribes recently added some 950 burial records dating from 1776 to 1791 from the Ducking Pond Lane<\/a> \u00a0small burial register held at Southampton\u00a0 although, disappointingly, due to the minimal patronymics,\u00a0 a high proportion of the earliest of these records are of little use to the genealogist.\u00a0 There is not much to be learned from an entry recording the death of an infant of Abraham\u00a0 b. Joseph.\u00a0 Or the Wife of Jacob b. Yehudah Leib.\u00a0 The maths,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 is very simple: taking round figures, 1655 to 1770,. that\u00a0 leaves\u00a0 approximately 125 years with absolutely no records for the Ashkenazi community and the a further 20 -25 years with\u00a0 the rarest of instances.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start by looking at what \u2013 on the Donald Rumsfeld scale of options \u2013 can be termed the Known Knowns.\u00a0 By which I mean the core set of microfilmed registers available to view at the LDS.\u00a0 These microfilms are our sole means of access to these vital records, and we must be grateful to the LDS for their forethought in undertaking this task, more than half a century ago.<\/p>\n In January 2000, with the invaluable help of Frank Gent, I published in book form, the transcripts .of the Great Synagogue Marriages, followed by a CD of the New Synagogue Births and Marriages\u00a0 These transcripts had been \u201cbequeathed\u201d to me by their extraordinary American transcriber \u2013 whose express wish to remain anonymous I am bound to adhere, but to whom I would like to dedicate this talk. Prior to that, with the exception of a couple of centres where the films were on \u201cpermanent loan\u201d, researchers had to pre-order\u00a0 the relevant microfilm, for viewing at their nearest Family History Centre.\u00a0 Since that time, all the transcripts bequeathed to me – and a whole lot more –\u00a0 have been published on the SynagogueScribes website owned by Gaby Laws and myself, where they can be searched\u00a0 for free.\u00a0 At the same time, Harold and Miriam Lewin have print published three extensive volumes of records from the three main London Synagogues,\u00a0 and are currently working on the Great Synagogue Death Registers.<\/p>\n Whilst on the subject of transcripts, I am sometimes asked about the overlap between the Lewin publications and ours. Personally, I do not see this as a problem.\u00a0 Quite the contrary: Any duplication\u00a0 can only be good for the researcher. Here is a typical example<\/p>\n We recently received an enquiry from a New Zealand woman regarding a family tombstone which appears on our Cemeteryscribes website, see here<\/a>.<\/p>\n With appropriate caveats, we had identified\u00a0 her family name as Levy,\u00a0 but the enquirer could find no indication of this in the Lewin transliteration of the relevant New Synagogue Hebrew-only marriage record.\u00a0 The reason soon became apparent:\u00a0 according to our transliterator,\u00a0 although there was nothing specific in the Bride\u2019s patronymic<\/a>,\u00a0 a comment against the\u00a0 groom\u2019s entry, read\u00a0 \u201cson- in- law of\u00a0 Feis Levi SGL, head of family\u201d<\/i>.\u00a0 Lewin, however, renders this as \u201cson-in-law of\u00a0 Feis Sets\u201d<\/i>.\u00a0 I checked the typed sheet from which I had taken this record and found that the transliterator had noted, with some care, that the name Feis was followed by an\u00a0 S and a \u2018flourish\u2019, denoting, according to her, SGL = Segan Leviah = Levy.\u00a0 Both transliterators would have studied the script with equal care and attention, but the writing may have been hard to decipher, or there may have been blobs on the page.\u00a0 Whatever the reason, they evidently \u201csaw\u201d the characters differently, with consequent differing conclusions.\u00a0\u00a0 Since we, ourselves, do not hold copies of the original register. all we can do in such circumstances is advise the researcher to locate and capture the relevant record in the microfilmed register \u2013 no easy task since, in these early Hebrew-only records\u00a0 there are no indications in English for the year, let alone the family name \u2013 and then seek out readers of cursive Hebrew script for a third, fourth, or even fifth interpretation.<\/p>\n Another crucial difference between the SynagogueScribes, Lewin and Susser transcripts is the rendition of the Hebrew names:\u00a0 Synagoguescribes and Susser tend toward what I would loosely describe as an Anglicised version: Jacob, Abraham, Benjamin: whereas the Lewins tend to what I will call the Israeli: Avrahom, Yaakov, Binyamin.\u00a0 I have discussed with Henry Roche the possibilities of trying to find a uniform orthography for transcripts but I regret the sheer difficulty of the project has, thus far, defeated me.<\/p>\n Now, it would be surprising if, with such a vast number of records, the odd mistake did not creep in,\u00a0 and we are always grateful when people bring these to our attention. One of the advantages of electronic databases over print, is that we can correct the inevitable typos the moment we spot them. Equally,\u00a0 where new research has helped positively identify the English names in a Hebrew-only record, we can insert these in square [—] brackets. We can also add notes where queries over the Hebrew have been raised and reasonable proofs offered. But there is one thing we will never do and that is alter the original transcription. Our transliterator is no longer here to\u00a0 make the evaluation and it cannot be down to us to do it for her.<\/p>\n There is a dangerous philosophy, loudly voiced in some quarters that, once published,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 work such as that done by the Lewins and ourselves, becomes \u201cPublic Property\u201d and can be republished, in part, or in its entirety, by anyone, anywhere, and even subject to amendment and alteration.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, I do not share that view!\u00a0\u00a0 Petra Laidlaw\u2019s inspired introduction of The Genealogy Quality Code<\/a> is a first step toward preserving the integrity of published databases and other material,\u00a0 but we need to push for\u00a0 more education and a greater understanding of why\u00a0 the wiki-ing of such works is both damaging, dangerous,\u00a0 and just plain wrong. The question of ownership is fraught with difficulty and I will to return to it at the end of my talk..<\/p>\n I want to return now to the original records, and two sets in particular.\u00a0\u00a0 On the Rumsfeld scale, I suppose that these could be defined as Unknown-Knowns. We know, in broad terms, WHAT<\/b> they are. and we now know WHERE<\/b>\u00a0 they can be found – in the archives of the Beth Din\u00a0\u00a0 But, there are no transcripts and no public access, so we cannot know the details,\u00a0 let alone the names, of the individuals whose deaths and births they record.<\/p>\n The first of these\u00a0 are the un-filmed Burial Registers of the New Synagogue \u2013 three volumes or more.\u00a0 As far as I know, there is no published\u00a0 record of the years they cover and\u00a0 researchers, who believe they may contain a record of their ancestor\u2019s burial, are obliged to place a request with the Chief Archivist, who will require detailed information of name and date range, and a fee will be charged.<\/p>\n Personal research problems are generally of little interest to others, but I feel one would be useful here to illustrate the importance of\u00a0 these, registers. I had been stuck for sometime on one of my ancestors. a Joseph Jacob or Jacobs,\u00a0 who would have been born around 1762\u00a0 or earlier.\u00a0 In an interview given to the Jewish Chronicle on 24 September 1900, on the occasion of his Diamond Wedding, Joseph\u2019s grandson, John Jacobs, stated that his father, Samuel Jacobs of London and Sheffield, was the son of Joseph Jacob of Gravel Lane, a founder member of the New Synagogue. And\u00a0 this information was repeated almost verbatim by Roth in his \u201cRise of Provincial Jewry\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 in the section on the Sheffield Community.<\/p>\n \u00a0Unfortunately, we have tangible proof\u00a0 that John Jacobs was very prone to\u00a0 – well, let\u2019s be kind and call it fantasising\u00a0\u00a0 So, not surprisingly,\u00a0 we gave, the statement\u00a0 about\u00a0 his grandfather little credence.\u00a0\u00a0 But an\u00a0 abstract of a Will dated 1826, prepared for the secular records section of out website by our friend and colleague, David Alexander,\u00a0\u00a0 looked promising.\u00a0 The testator was one Joseph Jacob<\/a>,\u00a0 tobacconist of Gravel Lane, with a son called Samuel. Promising? Yes!\u00a0 But very far from conclusive.\u00a0\u00a0 A death record might help. A kind friend scrolled through the relevant\u00a0 Great Synagogue\u00a0 microfilm at Kew for me but, although\u00a0 there was a strict and very narrow timespan for the search,\u00a0 between a codicil dated 15 January and Probate dated 8 February,\u00a0 he could find no likely record.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A request to the Chief Archivist ultimately produced a burialrecord and the unique patronymic, as verified for me by Henry Roche, clinched the identification.\u00a0 He was Joseph b Eleazer vav-vav-tet with an abbreviation mark (\u201c) over the vav\u2019s;\u00a0 a perfect\u00a0 match to the patronymic\u00a0 which appears in the Hebrew-only New Synagogue marriage record of Joseph\u2019s son,\u00a0 Samuel<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 a combination of characters,\u00a0 incidentally,\u00a0 I have not found in any other record.\u00a0 However, only very recently, Henry Roche has suggested a link between these characters and the word WASSERTRAGER (water seller) which appears in a handful of records, some of which can be linked to Jacobs families.\u00a0\u00a0 I have not yet had time to work through the data but it looks very\u00a0 promising and, once again, the Hebrew records have provided a vital clue<\/p>\n We were lucky, in our approach to the Beth Din,\u00a0 that we had a limited date range for this search and the record was not Hebrew-only.\u00a0 Had either of those been the case. the charge\u00a0 would have been much higher and the time taken to effect it even longer than the five weeks that elapsed \u2013 indeed, if the Chief Archivist had been especially busy at the time, it may not even have been undertaken.\u00a0 Such dependency is deeply frustrating.<\/p>\n The\u00a0 importance of the second set of records in this Unknown-Known category cannot be over-stated since they date from 1771.\u00a0 I refer to what Roth describes in his catalogue as \u201ca number of unbound birth fascicules\u201d.<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Earlier this year, when Henry Roche asked me if I knew their whereabouts, I had to admit that, not only was I ignorant of where thry might be, I had never even heard of them!\u00a0 Nor, it seemed, had anyone else.<\/p>\n Henry first saw them In the late 1970\u2019s at Woburn House where, with the permission of of the then Archivist, Reverend\u00a0 Sunshine, he was able to examine the Colyer-Fergusson, Hyamson & other collections. He was also able to consult the original Great Synagogue registers and, vitally, a set of birth records on unbound slips of paper from which he was able to copy the basic English details of the births of his ancestor, George Levi , and his 5 brothers.\u00a0\u00a0 He returned in the mid-1980\u2019s, by which time he had learnt to read cursive Hebrew,\u00a0 and was able to add the Hebrew information from those same fascicules \u2013 which, by then had all been pasted into a book and indexed by (he believes) Reverend. Sunshine himself.\u00a0 These records were, apparently, fully bilingual and covered births from as early as 1771 up to 1829, including many names absent from the microfilmed 1791-1852\u00a0 Register.\u00a0 With more time on his hands, Henry thought it would be good to take another look at them and, this time, widen the scope of his searches beyond the Levi family. Having recently discovered that they were currently held by the Beth Din, he put in a request to the Chief Archivist, but I have yet to learn whether the results have been positive .\u00a0 So, progress, of a sort!\u00a0 But would it not be wonderful if you, or I,\u00a0 or other interested researchers, across the globe, could browse a full transcript of these unique records for ourselves!<\/p>\n I have no need to explain to seasoned Genealogists why these Synagogue\u00a0 Records are so important to pre-civil registration research: it is, of course, for the P-A-T-R-O-N-Y-M-I-C-S.<\/b><\/p>\n As I noted In an article I wrote for Shemot in September 2002, the range of family names in use in 18th and early 19th century Anglo Jewry was very limited and the registers are crammed with Levys, and Cohens,\u00a0\u00a0 Phillips and, Benjamins, Solomons, Lazarus and Harrises,\u00a0 with few recognisable non-tribal,\u00a0 non patronymic surnames.\u00a0 And this limited name pool was coupled with an equally narrow range of forenames;\u00a0 Joseph, Henry, Elizabeth, Sarah. Impossible to know which of half a dozen contemporary Samuel Levys is yours.\u00a0 Fortunately,\u00a0 however, the patronymics at this period\u00a0 frequently contained useful additional flourishes \u2013 places of origin: Amsterdam, Mannheim, Courland . Occupations:\u00a0 schneider sopher, kesselflicker, and my favourite\u00a0 Taschenspieler \u2013the juggler!\u00a0 There were also personal descriptions – small, tall, dark, blind\u00a0 hunchback.\u00a0 All of which, if repeated across more than one record, make for helpful identifiers which can be vital in eliminating \u201cfalse\u201d trails. And, they are of equal importance in the forensic examination of long-since published trees and genealogies that, in the absence of other sources, have come to be accepted by many as factual records<\/p>\n A classic example of this occurs in Roth\u2019s 1950 publication \u201cThe Rise of Provincial Jewry\u201d in the section on The Early Communities he writes:<\/p>\n In Deal, there were in 1814 three Jewish Navy Agents–Abraham Aaron, Emanuel Emanuel, and Moses Moses; here too lived Michael Levy, one of whose 26(!) daughters was Sir Sidney Lee’s other grandmother.<\/i><\/p>\n My interest in Michael Levy of Deal arose from an enquiry from a non-Jewish descendant of\u00a0 Lewis Levy, son of a Solomon Levy of Deal.\u00a0 Brothers, I supposed.?<\/p>\n In a fairly short space of time I had amassed a large cohort of data on Solomon Levy\u00a0 of Deal, But nothing on Michael Levy of Deal. Nothing, that is,. except\u00a0 the entry in Roth, a similar reference in Arthur Barnett\u2019s History of the Western Synagogue, written 10 years later, with a preface by Roth, and, slightly less specifically,\u00a0 Eleanor Farjeon\u2019s 1935 autobiography\u00a0 ‘A Nursery in the Nineties’ which opens with these words<\/p>\n \u00a0“Benjamin Leopold Farjeon was born in 1838 of Jewish parents.\u00a0 His mother,\u00a0 Dinah, was a native of Deal; she had twenty-five sisters”.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n Stern\u2019s genealogy of the Abraham family http:\/\/americanjewisharchives.org\/publications\/fajf\/pdfs\/stern_p002.pdf\u00a0 <\/a>\u00a0shows Rebecca, the wife of Victor Abraham, as a daughter of Michael Levy of Deal . No reference to the tribe of sisters – although these are mentioned in the family papers, about which more later.\u00a0 Now, time is limited and,\u00a0 since this\u00a0 talk is about\u00a0 records, not research,\u00a0 I\u2019m going to ask you to take the genealogy on trust and confine myself to the basic available data.<\/p>\n The 1839 will of Elizabeth Gompertz<\/a> nee Levy\u00a0 names five daughters of her brother, Solomon Levy of Deal, and his wife Phoebe:\u00a0 these are Bella Levy, Fanny Lyon the wife of Lewis Lyon, Charlotte Spiers the wife of B.M. Spiers, Dinah Farjeon the wife of Jacob Farjeon and\u00a0 Rebecca, the wife of Victor Abraham.\u00a0 Of these girls, Isabella did not marry; marriages for Fanny and Charlotte have not yet been found;\u00a0 Dinah married at Bevis Marks: the record reads \u201cJacob Hay de Israel Farjeon and Triendla de Solomon Salman Levy<\/i><\/p>\n 26 Tishri 5588 = 17 October 1827<\/i>\u201d; Rebecca Levy married Victor Abraham at the Great Synagogue (link to GSM 066\/5) where her father is shown as Shlomeh Zalman Levy..<\/p>\n Separate newspaper announcements in the Kentish Press of 1810\u00a0 give us two further daughters of Solomon Levy of Deal,\u00a0 Silversmith: these were:<\/p>\n Elizabeth, the ancestress of Sir Sidney Lee, whose name appears in the Roth quote referred to earlier, and who married Joseph Levy in Boston Lincs ( there is no synagogue record for this marriage) And Polly Mary, who married Moses Lyon<\/a> also of Boston Lincs at the Great Synagogue London, where she is recorded as the daughter of\u00a0 Zalman SGL from Deal.<\/p>\n We have thus identified SEVEN of the TWENTY-SEVEN alleged daughters, said to have been sired by Michael Levy of Deal, romantically recorded in family papers as a Wrecker,\u00a0 but, who, on of examination of the facts, turn out to be. issue of Solomon Levy the Silversmith of Deal. In addition, we have found two circumcision records located in the Susser transcripts of the circumcision records of Rabbi Ash of Dover<\/p>\n \u00a0On 1 April 1804\u00a0 Meir b HaHaver Solomon Zalman SGL\u00a0 Deal\u00a0 – later Identified as Michael Levy<\/a> and,\u00a0 on 22 August 1805\u00a0 Ary[eh] Leib b R Solomon Zalman SGL Deal identified as Lewis Levy<\/a>, later of Birmingham.<\/p>\n Enquiries\u00a0 re Michael Levy to the local Museums and Libraries in the Deal and Sandwich area\u00a0 have been totally unproductive.\u00a0 No listings in local directories. No mentions in the local press. Nothing!<\/p>\n A direct descendant of Victor Abraham kindly sent me copies of a Family History written by Lawrence Abraham,\u00a0 one of Rebecca\u2019s great grandsons, which document is cited by Barnett in his History of the Western Synagogue, and\u00a0 appears to be the sole source for the works by Roth, and Barnett.\u00a0\u00a0 And, on reading it through,\u00a0 I think<\/i> I can see how at least one of the \u201cmistakes\u201d may have arisen: Lawrence writes that Rebecca was one of possibly 8 daughters of Michael Levy and, a few paragraphs later, speaks of Rebecca having given birth to some 16 to 22 children. My guess \u2013 and it is only a guess – is that the figures got confused, and\u00a0 somewhere along the line\u00a0 she became a sib of 27, rather than the mother of such a large brood.\u00a0\u00a0 Lawrence also raises the possibility\u00a0 that the father of some, or all, of these children may have been called SOLOMON and, on the very last page, he quotes three birth records with very accurate dates down to the hour, for a son, Moses, another son Isaiah (named in the will of Solomon Gompertz<\/a> as a son of Solomon Levy and a daughter, Fanny. (presumably the wife of Lewis Lyon mentioned in the Will of Elizabeth Levy Gompertz, as a daughter of Solomon Levy of Deal).Mention is also made of a son Hyman, who I have yet to locate.\u00a0 Whether there was a Michael Levy, with a close connection to Solomon Levy of Deal, remains\u00a0 a mystery.\u00a0 As does the wonderfully romantic story of him being a \u201cWrecker\u201d, and a great deal more research will be required before the case can finally be marked \u201csolved\u201d<\/p>\n It is easy to dismiss this kind of unsourced \u201cmis-information\u201d when it\u00a0 appears in a personal Family Tree posted on Ancestry, much harder when the author is\u00a0 Cecil Roth, THE historian of Anglo Jewry, and then repeated by the almost equally eminent,\u00a0 Arthur Barnett, who seems to have regurgitated unverified data from a family memoir, written many years after the deaths of the main participants, and, seemingly, without checking its reliability.\u00a0 The\u00a0 Synagogue records were there for him to consult.\u00a0 Luckily they are still here today. But we have no guarantees that this will always be the case.\u00a0 I say this advisedly as, during my correspondence with Mr Abraham, he revealed a shocking event which should make us all sit up and take notice<\/p>\n It appears that after the death of Lawrence Abraham, his sister, Kathleen Joseph, donated all the family papers to \u2013 well, let\u2019s just call it \u201ca notable Jewish Institution\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 But, some years later, enquiries by family members\u00a0 were met with firm assertions\u00a0 that the Institution concerned had no record of ever having received any such papers.\u00a0 The family were understandably distressed\u00a0 but, since they could find no actual correspondence, there was no way of proving the rights and wrongs of the case. Their valuable family archive had seemingly vanished into thin air and they despaired of ever seeing it again.\u00a0 So\u00a0 you can imagine their shock on being alerted to the site of an American auction house which gave details of the sale in 2005 of some of the items.<\/p>\n The online link to this sale is no longer live, however, the details of an earlier auction in June 1998 can still be seen on line \u2013 the sale of the Abraham Family papers, which were valued at between two to three thousand dollars, in fact realised over sixteen thousand dollars.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, the auction house will not divulge any information regarding either seller or purchaser.<\/p>\n I took a quick look at items currently available on Judaica auctions and was flabbergasted to see just how much is out there.\u00a0\u00a0 I wonder who purchased these items?<\/p>\n HEBREW MANUSCRIPT – Two Chalitsah Books (Hebrew registers of the authorizations granted, releasing men from the halakhic requirement to marry the widow of a deceased brother) one by the Knesset Israel community (United Synagogue) in the City of London (1874-1880), the other from an unidentified London synagogue. London, 1874-1920.<\/p>\n \u00a0Who put them on the market?\u00a0 And were any checks made as to ownership rights?<\/p>\n And it begs the question: What else has \u201cdisappeared\u201d<\/i> in this way? And what else may follow? Since there is such a lack of clarity as to who owns what, and where the documents are housed, we may never know. And it brings us back to the difficult question of ownership.<\/p>\n The fate of the Abraham papers acts as a timely warning. Do not assume an institution will be a willing recipient of your family papers \u2013 storage and preservation can be costly and space is always at a premium. Make sure everyone understands the terms of the donation. And get something in writing.<\/p>\n Ownership of\u00a0 Historic Synagogue Reisters and other vital Community records cannot be dealt with so readily.\u00a0 Who owns them, for a start?\u00a0 Arguably, in law, the Mormon Church of Latter-day Saints can lay claim to \u201cownership\u201d of the microfilms \u2013 but not, I would suggest, the information they contain.\u00a0 Nor, in my view, does that belong to the United Synagogue,\u00a0 the Beth Din, or any other institution, archive or Society, or titular keeper.\u00a0 That\u00a0 information surely \u201cbelongs\u201d to Anglo-Jewry?<\/p>\n In an article in the August edition of Shemot, the eminent Anglo-Jewish genealogist,\u00a0 Anthony Joseph wrote \u201cThe need to check original sources remains paramount\u201d\u00a0 <\/i>I wouldn\u2019t argue with that.\u00a0 But, today, the sheer number of researchers across the globe makes this impossible in practice: considerations of cost and organisation apart, delicate manuscripts could not support being handled to this extent.\u00a0 There is a New Synagogue Privileged Members Ledger held by the LMA, that was withdrawn about 18 months ago, simply because if was in such a delicate state. I was not surprised.\u00a0\u00a0 Over the years I had been consulting it,\u00a0 the damp that had affected the bottom right hand corner of the volume had slowly crept further up the page,\u00a0 although the greater proportion was still serviceable.\u00a0 A recent exchange of correspondence with the LMA Archivist has resulted in the manuscript being made available once more, in exceptional circumstances.\u00a0 But, given the degree of damage,\u00a0 I fear its days are ultimately numbered.\u00a0 And, even if it were technically possible, the cost of restoration of this single manuscript alone would run into thousands of pounds.<\/p>\n The answer to the problem of universal access to, and preservation of, original historic manuscript records has to be the production of properly digitised copies.\u00a0 That may not suit the purists, but it would give all <\/b>researchers the same opportunities that were once available to the lucky few\u00a0 who like Anthony Joseph,. started their research several decades ago.<\/p>\n But, and it cannot be stressed too strongly, such digitisation must be done to a professional standard, with the most up-to-date equipment.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It beggars belief that in the 21st century we should have to trek out to some distant family History Centre, to peer at records microfilmed almost\u00a0 65 years ago, using stone age hand-cranked viewers!\u00a0 And that we should be dependent on the LDS for the privilege!\u00a0 Any more than we should be dependent on the goodwill of the Chief Archivist of the Beth Din.\u00a0 What happens when the present incumbent retires? Will his successor have the time or the interest?\u00a0 What sort of charges will be made for us to have access to OUR records? How many weeks or months will we have to wait? That is, if the joint administrators of the United Synagogue and the Beth Din even permit it.<\/p>\n I am aware that stalwarts of the JGSGB have been negotiating with these organisations for many years\u00a0 and, I believe, they have had some notable successes.\u00a0 But , in my view, nowhere near enough.<\/p>\n Perhaps the time has come for a wider, more collaborative approach?\u00a0 Perhaps the manuscript and written heritage of Anglo-Jewry could be treated\u00a0 in the same way as that of the built environment \u2013 cemeteries, synagogues, etc. much of which is now firmly protected by English Heritage, with the possibility of assistance from outside funds\u00a0 ranging from the Government, through the Department of Culture Media and Sport, the National Lottery and a variety of other public and private sources.\u00a0 The Jewish Museum seems to have just such a programme under way with their \u201cJudaica Europeana\u201d project:\u00a0 would the Society be prepared to consider joining with them, or some other institution such as the Hartley Library at Southampton University,\u00a0 in a collaborative venture to digitise, database, and, make available to researchers, the\u00a0 records of Post- Readmission Anglo-Jewry?<\/p>\n I appreciate that getting a collaborative venture off this kind off the ground would not be easy\u00a0 but, with goodwill on all sides,\u00a0 ways and means could surely be found to make it achievable.\u00a0\u00a0 There could be no argument over the objectives:<\/p>\n These historic records belong to US.. They relate to OUR Ancestors.\u00a0 They contain OUR History. They are OUR heritage.\u00a0 Their future preservation should concern us all..<\/p>\n Angela Shire 27 October 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adapted from a talk delivered to the Annual Conference of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain October 2013 Consider the following facts: The readmission of the Jews to the United Kingdom took place CIRCA 1656 \u2013 the date is …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-stories-articles-interest","tag-anglo-jewish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178,"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synagoguescribes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n