I start my long 24 hour trek early tomorrow from Perth to Seattle.
I will be in Seattle until Tuesday evening.
I am giving a presentation at a South African Tea Party this Saturday afternoon. This will be of interest to those wanting to connect with their shtetl.
This talk is being held within walking distance from the Sheraton.
I plan to spend most of Monday and Tuesday meeting up with the many people I have communicated with via the 70 JewishGen KehilaLinks I write and manage.
These Jewish websites cover many countries and regions – Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Belarus, Russia, South Africa, Australia and China.
If you would like to catch up with me to discuss these, your shtetl, heritage travel or just to say hello, email me at eli@elirab.com. I am likely to be near the lobby.
My interest in family history started in 1992, after my cousin wrote seven ancestors’ names down on a scrap piece of paper.
I have had many genealogical success stories since then. This is due to my often unorthodox, multi focused approach, described by my daughter in law as “tangential”!
In 2011 I visited Eastern Europe for the first time. My heritage travels have taken me back four additional times. I have visited Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic and Turkey.
I started writing KehilaLinks in 2011, the first being for Orla, near Bialystok in Poland in 2011.
JewishGen KehilaLinks (formerly “ShtetLinks”) is a project facilitating web pages commemorating the places where Jews have lived. KehilaLinks provides the opportunity for anyone with an interest in a place to create web pages about that community. These web pages may contain information, pictures, databases, and links to other sources providing data about that place.
Kehilaקהילה [Hebrew] n. (pl. kehilot קהילות): Jewish Community. It is used to refer to a Jewish community, anywhere in the world.
Sites are hosted by JewishGen, the world’s largest Jewish genealogical organisation, an affiliate of the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York City. JewishGen provides amateur and professional genealogists with the tools to research their Jewish family history and heritage.
People are invited to send in their own stories, photos and memoirs. There is no cost in participating in a KehilaLink and it is a great way to share one’s family history
My list has grown to 63 websites with 3 more in the pipeline.
Ironically, the one place I have not been to is Shanghai! Yet, I have been drawn to it by its connection to the Jewish people and especially because of the story of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kovno, the capital of Lithuania during WWII. Against his government’s wishes, Sugihara issued transit visas to Jews, enabling them to get to Shanghai, and therefore saved many lives. The story only surfaced in the 1970s. See Rabbi Levi Wolff of Sydney Central Synagogue:
Amanda’s grandfather’s uncle, Hermann Wertheim, his wife Mathilde, and children Julius, Max, Fanny and Fritz who lived in Graaff-Reinett. It was taken in about 1892
The general store, Wille & Wertheim, formerly Baumann Bros., where Amanda’s grandfather, August Katz came to work for his uncle Hermann Wertheim.
August Katz, Amanda’s grandfather, in his British Boer War uniform
Grave of Fritz Wertheim, son of Mathilde and Hermann Wertheim. Hermann was a brother of Amanda’s great-grandmother, Mathilde Wertheim.
There are several lists of names which are searchable in the WordPress search engine on the top of the sidebar on the right.
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Details about David Sandler and his books are available by clicking on the link above.
Do you want to experience an inspirational tour of Latvia, Lithuania & Belarus, led by highly respected and experienced guide, South African Hugh Raichlin, together with local English speaking guides?
Eddie’s Kosher Travel is offering the following excellent tour next June. All Eddie’s Kosher Travel tours are kosher.
I am helping to promote this tour for Eddie’s Kosher Travel and I am available to answer your queries.
Please contact me at eli@elirab.com as soon as possible to register your interest, as there are limited spaces available.
There are several other KOSHER tours that Eddie’s Kosher Travel offers, so please ask me about these.
We can then update you on the activities in those towns.
For example, there are numerous Jewish projects currently taking place in Seduva, Zagare, Birzai, Plunge, Kedainiai, Joniskis, Kupiskis, Kaunas and Vilnius.
We are also interested in the towns that your Litvak forefathers settled in, after leaving.
Please email your list together with your family names associated with the particular towns and shtetls to:
This Facebook page and its associated website will be dedicated information gateways (portals) to aspects of Jewish life, past and present, in Lithuania and those parts of Belarus, Latvia and Poland regarded as Litvak.
The Choral Synagogue of Vilnius (Lithuanian: Vilniaus choralinė sinagoga) is the only synagogue in Vilnius that is still in use. The other synagogues were destroyed during World War II, when Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany.
The Choral Synagogue of Vilnius was built in 1903.[1]
It is the only active synagogue that survived both the Holocaust and Soviet rule in this city that once had over 100 synagogues.[1]International donations and a small community of Jews in Vilnius support the synagogue. The synagogue holds services and is open to visitors.[2]
My first visit to the Vilnius Jewish Public Library which was most interesting. I met its director:
