Schedule of Upcoming Events

Please note: Meeting times, dates, locations and speakers are subject to change.

Information is regularly updated. 

Due to the Corona virus situation, our meetings this year were conducted on the Zoom. Starting May 15, 2022, our meetings will be in-person AND online whenever possible and safe.

 

Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 1:15 pm (Note the earlier time)

Hybrid Meeting

In Person at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, 8339 Old York Rd, Elkins Park, PA 19027

 

Speaker: Zachary Mazur, Senior Historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw

 

 

Zachary Mazur earned his PhD at Yale University and is currently a Senior Historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. His research interests include twentieth-century Eastern and Central Europe, national identity, law, and economics.

 

Topic: Rabbis, Innkeepers and Tricksters: Jewish Life in Poland-Lithuania

 

Approximately eighty percent of the world’s Jews have a connection to Eastern Europe, and all of them once lived in a unique country called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Join Zachary Mazur, Senior Historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, to discuss the key question of why Jews settled in Eastern Europe and what their lives looked like there. While discussing the larger historical narrative, we will focus on the stories of those living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to paint a picture of Jewish life before the Great Migration that began in the 1880s.

 

This virtual seminar will incorporate POLIN’s Core Exhibition, a journey through 1000 years of the history of Jews in Poland from the Middle Ages to the present day.

April Meeting is not yet set. In partnership with HAMEC (Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center), we are exploring a special Holocaust related program in commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day

Sunday, May 21, 2023 at 1:30 pm

Hybrid Meeting – In-person venue TBD

 

Speaker: Tammy Hepps, Local Historian and Genealogist

 

 

Tammy is a genealogist and local historian who focuses on topics within American Jewish history, especially small towns and synagogues. Her projects combine research techniques from genealogy and history and draw heavily upon her technology expertise to break new ground in data gathering and interpretation. She is best known for her community reconstitution project focusing on the Jewish community of Homestead, PA, available online at HomesteadHebrews.com. Tammy earned her AB in computer science from Harvard.

 

Topic: The Ancestor Deep-Dive: How You Can Find Out Everything There Possibly is to Know About Your Ancestor

 

Too often our research is driven by sources. We look for an ancestor in all the sources we’ve heard about, and we only break new ground when we hear about new ones. How do we assess how comprehensive our search has been? How do we know if we’re even on the right path to get the answers we long for?  This presentation will teach a methodology for creating a research plan centered on the discoveries we want to make, not just the sources we think we are limited to.

 

Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 1:30 pm

Hybrid Meeting

In Person Venue TBD

 

Speaker: Dr. Robert Watson, Professor, Author, Historian, and Media Commentator

 

Robert Watson is an award-winning author who has published over 40 books and 200 scholarly articles and essays on topics in political, military, and social history, as well as two multi-edition, multi-volume encyclopedia sets on the presidents and first ladies. Some of his recent books include Affairs of State (2012), America’s First Crisis (2014), The Nazi Titanic (2016), The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn (2017), George Washington’s Final Battle (2021), and Escape (2021), as well as the forthcoming books When Washington Burned (2023) and American’s First Plague (2023). Watson’s books have won numerous awards including the Independent Publishers’ Gold Medal in History and Silver Medal in History, John Barry Book Award, and John Lyman Book Award, have been featured on C-SPAN’s Book TV and at prominent literary festivals around the country, and are available in both audiobook and international translation.

 

Topic: The Legacy of the Nuremberg Trials

 

This presentation examines the philosophical, legal, and political debates surrounding the decision to hold the trials as well as the format for the trials, types of trials, and categories of charges and crimes. We will consider the important legacy of these historic trials on international law and human rights, but also their impact far beyond the courtroom.