The Institute sponsored a panel on Jewish Genealogy at the Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, organised by the World Union of Jewish Studies (WUJS) in Jerusalem on August 2-6, 2009.

This precedent-setting event was part of the Institute’s effort to have Jewish Genealogy recognised as a sub-branch of Jewish Studies.

The moderator was Prof. Sergio DellaPergola (Hebrew University), who observed that this was the first time that a panel wholly devoted to Jewish genealogy had ever been held at a WUJS Congress. He hoped that it would be followed by many more.

The panellists and their papers were:

1. Dr. Neville Lamdan (Director, International Institute for Jewish Genealogy): Jewish Genealogy – A legitimate field for academic research?

An assessment of the status of modern scholarly Jewish genealogy and its potential as a sub-branch of Jewish Studies.

Click here for Dr. Lamdan’s paper.

2. Prof. Aaron Demsky (Professor Emeritus, Bar Ilan University): Abbaye’s Family Origins - A Study in Rabbinic Genealogy

A clarification of rabbinic sources, using genealogical methods to synthesize biography, historical geography and the communal recollection of genetic disorders.

Click here for a precis of Prof. Demsky’s paper.

3. Prof. Ruth Kark (Hebrew University) & Dr. Joseph Glass (Toronto): Sephardi Entrepreneurial Elites in late 19th and early 20th century Palestine

An inter-disciplinary study of leading Sephardi families, combining genealogy with a historical-geographical research.

Click here for a “power point” summary of Prof. Kark’s and Dr. Glass’s work, as presented by Dr. Glass.

4. Prof. H.D. Wagner (Weizmann Institute): Genealogical Database Merging

A presentation of a new tool for merging family records from discrete sources and partially overlapping databases, using Zdunska Wola (Poland) as a test case.

Click here for a “power point” presentation of Prof. Wagner’s work.

Click here for photographs of the session and the participants.