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Welcome to the Jewish Genealogical and Archival Society of Greater Philadelphia (JGASGP). We invite you to enjoy our site. There is content for paid-up members only. If you are a member, please register for access. (Click Register at the right under “Logon Status”.) If not a member, please join. |
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With great sadness, we regret to inform you of the passing of our beloved Evan Fishman. Evan was a kind soul who was dedicated to our Chronicles journal, his research, his friends and foremost his family. We will make an announcement in the future after we have time to think about how we want to memorialize Evan. We are just in shock and wanted to share this ASAP. |
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| There will be no book club in July or August, and we are taking August off for all meetings. |
Sunday, June 22, 2025 at 2:30 pm
(2 pm for in-person Schmoozing and Mentoring)
Hybrid Meeting – In Person Venue at Main Line Reform, Hausen Auditorium
Speaker: David Lee Preston, Author and Journalist
David retired in 2020 as Justice and Injustice Editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for “Journey To My Father’s Holocaust,” chronicling a monthlong trip with his father, George Preston, to Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other places of his father’s past. His mother, Halina Wind Preston, a native of Turka-nad-Stryjem in the Carpathian foothills of Galicia, was one of 10 Jews who survived together for 14 months in the sewers of Lviv, saved by Polish Catholic sewer workers. His Mother’s Day 1983 article “A Bird in the Wind,” published five months after his mother’s death and praised by historian Michael Berenbaum as “the best article written on the life of a survivor,” was the first English-language presentation of the Lviv sewer survival story later dramatized by the Polish director Agnieszka Holland in her Oscar-nominated 2011 movie “In Darkness.” Halina Wind Preston became a Jewish educator and the first survivor of the Nazis to speak across the United States about her experiences, with 40 appearances in 30 cities from 1949 to 1953. Her son, born in 1955, visited her mountain town after the fall of the Soviet Union, and wrote about it in “Speaking for the Ghosts: A Story for My Mother,” the third article in his trilogy of cover stories about his parents in the Inquirer’s old Sunday magazine. He writes a newsletter about his parents that is archived on his website. His YouTube channel includes recorded book programs he hosts over Zoom for Sons & Daughters of Holocaust Survivors of Greater Philadelphia, founded in 1979. He lives in Center City Philadelphia with his wife, Ronda B. Goldfein, executive director of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania. Their 1992 wedding was attended by millions who read about it – and about his mother – in the epilogue of James McBride’s international bestseller “The Color of Water.”
Topic: Finding Hope Underground
Ten years ago, emptying his childhood home in Wilmington, Delaware, the award-winning Philadelphia journalist David Lee Preston, a son of Holocaust survivors, got the biggest scoop of his career when he found an envelope marked by his mother in pencil Kanał (Polish for Sewer). Carefully he pulled out a tattered green handkerchief and four soiled notebooks filled with 167 pages in Polish written by his mother while she hid from the Nazis for 14 months in the sewers of Lviv in 1943-44. At this session, he will discuss his discovery and read passages of his mother’s original poetry and prose translated from those sewer notebooks.
WE WANT YOU TO CONNECT WITH THE JGASGP BOARD!!!
Our society has grown so much since the start of my term, one month before the onset of the pandemic. We have mushroomed to over 400 paid members and over 1500 members of our Facebook page. This is tremendously exciting! Although some of you have been members for decades, many are newcomers. It is wonderful to see our society in a new phase of growth.
In response to this surge in membership, the board wants to get a pulse on our members’ thoughts about the future activities of our society AND find out how each of you might be able to lend a hand.
If you have questions or comments for the JGASGP Board, just email President Felicia Mode Alexander at president@jgasgp.org.
Don’t forget to update your address and e-mail if it’s changed!
Email the changes to Marilyn Golden, membership@jgasgp.org
Our recent awards
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Our Book ClubJGASGP has a book club for members. We are meeting on Zoom every month except for July and August. Meetings are on the 4th Wednesday of the month at 7:30. Click here to learn about upcoming meetings. Members take turns leading our discussions. We are reading books by Jewish authors or books with Jewish themes. The link will be sent out the day of the meetings. Please mark your calendars and join us. Thanks to Beth Steiner for leading our discussion of The Book of Lost Names. We all said we liked historical fiction. * These books are available free to read at most free libraries in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas. Please consider joining us on our reading adventures. Any other suggestions??? Send your suggestions to Marilyn at membership@jgasgp.org (No meetings in July and August.) |
South 4th Street looking from Monroe to Fitzwater Sts. circa 1930
FYI
The Philadelphia Jewish Archives Center (PJAC) was formed through the efforts of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia many years ago. Its’ mission was to collect, preserve, facilitate research and share the story of the Jewish communities of the Greater Philadelphia area. In 2009 the holdings of PJAC were transferred to the Special Records Collection at Temple University Libraries. With the support of many philanthropic individuals, an archivist position was endowed by PJAC. With our new name (Jewish Genealogical and Archival Society of Greater Philadelphia) and mission we will continue the great work of PJAC.
We encourage you to support the archives with donations and archival material. Donations may be made to the Philadelphia Jewish Archives Collection Endowment at: Temple University Libraries, PO Box 71340 Philadelphia, PA 19176-9761
Donations can also be made through the library website: https://library.temple.edu/policies/10
Those interested in offering a donation of books or archival material to the Philadelphia Jewish Archives Collection should send a description of those materials to:
Melissa VandeBurgt, Director of Special Collections Research Center
Email: Melissa.VandeBurgt@temple.edu
What’s New On Our Site!
December 2023 We have a group of 29 volunteers working to digitize the burial records of Har Jehuda Cemetery in Upper Darby. The records will be part of JewishGen.org (JOWBR). The first 29,000 records (A to Sc…) are available NOW on our website under cemetery data.
December, 2022 The Society celebrates our 40th anniversary and our first president Harry Boonin. Pictures are located here.
November 2021 Our president is interviewed in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about the ongoing cleanup of Har Nebo Cemetery and the problems of cemeteries that are not maintained or are vandalized. The article is at https://www.inquirer.com/life/jewish-cemeteries-philadelphia-conservation-pilot-project-nebo-oxford-circle-20211109.html
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JGASCP supported the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center (HAMEC) Gala on November 6, 2021. Click the photo to enlarge |
October 2021 Our president, Felica Mode Alexander, was interviewed at the IAJGS2019 convention is Cleveland by Jarrett Ross, the GeneaVlogger, about her work with Holocaust education. The video is at https://youtu.be/tS3d3eeiwDw
October 2020
Goldstein’s Landsmanshaftn Cemetery data has been added to the Resources > Cemetery Data page. Landsmanshaftn organizations provided, among other things, burial societies.
August 2020 Meeting
Judy Baston: “Finding your Litvak Family” A handout is available by accessing the menu item, Archives>Meeting Summaries and Handouts.
Cemetery Records for Har Nebo Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA. You can find these under the Menu item “Resources”, then click on “Cemetery Data”
Miriam Weiner, our December meeting lecturer, was the subject of a recent article that appeared in the Jewish Exponent; “Genealogy Rock Star Discusses Digging Up Jewish Roots”. The article can be found under menu item “Archives”, then click on “Newspaper Articles”.
January 2020 Meeting
For Frederic Blum’s Handout, “How to locate Holocaust Survivors Through Genealogy”, please go to the menu item, “Archives”, then click on “Meeting Summaries and Handouts”
November 2019 Meeting
A handout from Deborah Long’s Lecture can be found on our website under menu item, “Archives”, then click on “Meeting Summaries and Handouts”
October 2019 Meeting
A handout from Jordan Auslander’s Lecture can be found on our website under menu item “Archives”, then click “Meeting Summaries and Handouts”
September 2019 Meeting
Sarina Roffe’s Lecture Handout can be found on our website under menu item “Archives”, then click “Meeting Summaries and Handouts”
Rabbi Shalom Bronstein’s reflections of Congregation Beth Am Israel during the 1940’s to the 1960’s can be found under the menu item “Resources”.The synagogue was originally located in SW Philadelphia. In 1973, the congregation moved to Penn Valley.
W. Todd Knowles’ Power Point Presentation on “Making the Most of FamilySearch for Jewish Research” can be found by going to the menu item “Archives” and clicking the “Meeting Summaries and Handouts” button.
Check out “An Ongoing History of Beth Emeth-B,nai Yitzhok Congegation” by Al Feldman. The synagogue was located in NE Philadelphia. You can find this document under the menu item “Resources”
Other Information
“A Service to the Jewish Community Award” was given to JGSGP on May 2, 2019 by the B’nai Brith Educators Unit Charter 5290.
For information on the JGSGP (JGASGP) Library at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) look under the menu item, “Resources”. To go directly to the our library collection at the HSP, click here.