Mission Statement | Goals| Progress | Milestones

Institute Milestones

Since the Institute opened in January 2006, it has made considerable progress towards achieving its goals.

Founding event – September 2006: A well-attended International Symposium was held in Jerusalem, thus putting the Institute on the academic map.
Research – Since 2007, Research Grants have been awarded annually for innovative projects in the field of Jewish genealogy.
At present (2013), 15 projects of different kinds have been completed or are in progress, at various levels of maturity.
Several final reports on the “pure research” projects have been posted on this Website.
A number of academic articles about the Institute’s work and research have been published.
Teaching – Fall 2008/Spring 2009: “Academic Guidelines” for BA and MA courses in Jewish Genealogy elaborated and offered to universities teaching Jewish Studies.
June 2011: “Academic Guidelines” were posted in various formats on this Website.
Tools and Technologies – Summer 2008: a standard for recording names, dates and places in genealogical databases was proposed.
Fall 2008: the “Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching” system, a technological breakthrough in the field of soundexing, made public.
Winter 2008: A system for the merging of genealogical datasets (primarily burial and civil records) was developed.
Winter 2008: Jacobi papers inventoried.
August 2009: A precedent-setting panel, wholly devoted to Jewish genealogy, was sponsored by the Institute at 15^th Congress of the World Union of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem), thus according a measure of academic recognition to Jewish genealogy as sub-branch of Jewish Studies for the first time.
July 2010: The Institute sponsored a 2^nd panel on Jewish genealogy at the 9^th Congress of the European Association of Jewish Studies (Ravenna).
August 2010: a positive “Performance Review”, covering its first four years of the Institute’s operation, was received from a highly-qualified outside observer, Prof. Yona Ettinger, of Jerusalem.
April and May 2011: the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities and the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council endorsed a multi-year demographic and genealogical project on Scottish Jewry, to be conducted by the Institute.
August 2011: a paper entitled “IIJG – 5 Years of Progress” was received with acclaim at the 31^st Conference of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies in Washington DC.
September 2011: the Institute participated in a major (non-Jewish) genealogical event, the 7^th International Colloquium of the International Academy of Genealogy (Bologna, Italy).
January 2012: work on the “Two Hundred Years of Scottish Jewry – a Demographic and Genealogical Survey” project started.
February 2012: a new framework for independent research projects associated with the Institute was initiated, commencing with the WIRTH Project.
March 2012: an international panel was set up to examine “Ethics and Jewish Genealogy”, with a mandate to recommend “ethical guidelines” for Jewish genealogists.
April 2012: Gorr Papers, held at the Israel National Library, were indexed by IIJG.
September 2012: the Institute held a Joint Symposium with the Russian Institute for Genealogical Research at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg on the “Genealogy and Family History of Jews in Russia”.
October 2012: a mega-project on the “Lives and Lineages of Village Jews in the 19^th century Minsk Gubernya” was launched.
February 2013: a Genealogical Service was initiated at the National Library of Israel, in cooperation with the two genealogical societies in Israel.
March 2013: Karo papers received and deposited in the IIJG Genealogical Repository at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (Jerusalem).
April 2013: an outline plan for the Institute’s objectives for the next 2-3 years was approved.
July 2013: A session devoted to Jewish genealogy was sponsored by the Institute at 16th Congress of the World Union of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem), following the precedent set at the 15th Congress in 2009.
July 2013: this WUJS session was followed by a separate discussion on “Research Directions for Jewish Genealogy.
August 2013: A closed session for academics and tenured faculty on “Teaching Jewish Genealogy at the University Level” was held at the 33rd IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (Boston).
August 2013: at the same Conference, Founding Director, Dr. Neville Lamdan, was presented with the IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award for his vision in establishing the Institute and directing it from 2006-2012.
January 2014: “Leslie Caplan Genealogical Repository” launched, in conjunction with the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem
October 2013: Preparation of Jacobi Monographs for publication begun.
February 2014: Genealogical Advisory Service initiated at National Library of Israel on the basis of an IIJG proposal and in conjunction with it.
January 2015: “Associated Programs” framework launched to accommodate academically accredited courses and programs seeking IIJG patronage.
May 2015: Research Prizes, on the name of Mathilde Tagger, awarded to Dr Kamila Klauzińska (Poland) for her dissertation on “Modern Genealogy of Polish Jews”, and Judy Golan (Israel) for a paper on “Reading between the Lines: Mining Jewish History through Extraction of Polish Archival Data”.
July 2015: IIJG acted as a sponsor of the 35th IAJGS International Conference in Jerusalem and supervised sessions devoted to academic genealogy.
August 2015: IIJG sponsored a summer course with Daemen College, NY, on “Multicultural Poland”, with a significant Jewish genealogical component.
September 2015: National Library of Israel posted an outline course on Jewish Genealogy, based on resources located in the Library, including IIJG materials (Jacobi and Gorr collections).
May 2016: The Institute sponsored a new “mega-project”, designed to trace the lineages of Conversos (“Marranos”) since 1492 and even before.
October 2016: Dr. Kenneth Collins authored a book, entitled “The Jewish Experience in Scotland: from Immigration to Integration”, presenting in popular form the results of IIJG’s flagship project: “Two Hundred Years of Scottish Jewry – a Demographic and Genealogical Survey” (started January 2012).
January 2017: A mobile exhibition with the same title went on tour throughout Scotland.
July 2017: An IIJG session, featuring the Institute’s “Two Hundred Years of Scottish Jewry” project, was held at the British Association for Jewish Studies Conference (Edinburgh).
August 2017: An IIJG session, wholly dedicated to Jewish genealogy was held at 17^th Congress of the World Union of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem).
March 2018: the Institute’s “Two Hundred Years of Scottish Jewry” project, was completed with publication of a scholarly volume, edited by Dr. Kenneth Collins and Professors Aubrey Newman and Bernard Wasserstein, presenting and analysing the results of the project.
April 2018: Dr. Yehudit Kalik’s research, initiated and supported by IIJG, on Village Jews became available as an e-book, entitled “Movable Inn – The Rural Jewish Population of Minsk Guberniya in 1793-1914”.
June 2018: A “Family Tree of Scottish Jewry” was rolled out at the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre (Glasgow)
August 2018: Research Prize, on the name of Chava Agmon, awarded to Dr. Alexander Avram, for his research and analysis of over 28,000 surnames used by Jews in Romanian-speaking lands from the 16th century until the end of WWII in Romania (1944).
December 2018: IIJG was one of the sponsors of an international conference on “Genealogy and the Sciences”, held at the Weizmann Institute for Science (Rehovot, Israel).
March 2019: culminating five years of editing work, a 4-volume series entitled “The Jacobi Papers: Genealogical Studies of Leading Ashkenazi Families”, was published.