Yizkor Book Project
Summary
December 2024
Shalom!
If the activity in December is any indication of the future of the Yizkor Book Project, I believe that we will continue to grow and develop during 2025.
As we bid farewell to 2024, it seems appropriate to note that over this past year we completed no less than twenty translation projects. The last project that we completed last year was the ‘Boiberke Memorial Book’ on Bobrka, Ukraine. The translation of this book was begun some years ago by Beverly Shulster Beiman; in more recent times the project was taken on by Tisha Bergwerk Bryan. Through Tisha’s dedicated leadership the book has now been completely translated and our grateful thanks go out to her for this important achievement.
It should be noted that the completion of this translation was greatly assisted by money raised in the Bobrka Translations Fund. This is a classic example which illustrates that the best way to see a book completely translated is by setting up a dedicated fund so all those with interest in the community can do their part in financially assisting in the professional translation of the book.
It is no surprise then that in recent times a number of new funds were set up to see the translation of Yizkor books become a reality. The books I am referring to are for Lubin, Poland and for Wislica, Poland. As I noted in our previous report, the donation process has been greatly simplified, as donations may now be set up to recur automatically each month, or on an annual basis. In addition, donations may now also be made by credit card or Google Pay. With these simplifications, I do request you consider supporting a project that is meaningful to your own family history.
Other news in the YB Project is that in the past month we gratefully received the ‘Jewish Families in Shtetl Kaushany, Bessarabia’ book on Căuşeni, Moldova. This book was written by Yefim Kogan. We appreciate Yefim's unique contribution to the Yizkor Book Project.
We were very fortunate this past month to receive quite a number of translations from the 1990 Tuchin, Ukraine Yizkor book from Dr. Anne E. Parsons. In the past, she has also kindly donated translations from the 1967 Tuchin, Ukraine Yizkor book. We do appreciate Dr. Parson’s thoughtfulness in presenting us with these translations.
Last year, Professor Naomi Sokoloff (University of Washington) began a project with her Hebrew language students to translate the Bacău, Romania Yizkor book.Last month saw the continuation of this project. This is certainly a win-win project from a number of aspects — the students practice their translation skills whilst learning about life in this particular community and, of course, the YB Project does gain these important texts. Our thanks go out to Professor Sokoloff for this remarkable and continuing initiative.
Now for the details of December 2024:
Yizkor Book Updates
This past month, 19 existing projects were updated:
- ➢Bacău, Romania (The Community of Bacau)
- ➢Bialystok, Poland (Memoirs and Writings of a Białystoker)
- ➢Bielsk-Podlaski, Poland (Bielsk-Podliask; Book in the Holy Memory of the Bielsk Podliask Jews)
- ➢Bobrka, Ukraine (Boiberke Memorial Book)
- ➢Frampol, Poland (The Frampol Memorial Book)
- ➢Goworowo, Poland (Govorowo Memorial Book)
- ➢Hvizdets, Ukraine (Memorial Book for Gwozdziec and Vicinity)
- ➢Korets, Ukraine (The Korets book; in memory of our community that is no more)
- ➢Krasnystaw, Poland (Memorial book of the martyrs of Krasnystaw)
- ➢Markuszów, Poland (The destruction and heroism of the town of Markuszow)
- ➢Ryki, Poland (A Memorial to the Community of Ryki, Poland) [Polish]
- ➢Rzeszów, Poland (Rzeszów Community Memorial Book)
- ➢Sokal, Ukraine (The Sokal Memorial Book)
- ➢Skierniewice, Poland (The Book of Skierniewice)
- ➢Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland (Tomashow-Mazowieck; a memorial to the Jewish community)
- ➢Vitsyebsk, Belarus (Vitebsk in the past; history, memoirs, destruction)
- ➢Warszawa, Poland (Jewish Warsaw that was; a Yiddish literary anthology)
- ➢Żelechów, Poland (Memorial Book of the Community of Zelechow) [Polish]
- ➢Zhovkva, Ukraine (Memorial book of Zolkiew)
New books
- ➢Căuşeni, Moldova (Jewish Families in Shtetl Kaushany, Bessarabia)
- ➢Tuchin, Ukraine (The Jews of Tuchin and Kripa in front of their murderers)
New entry
- ➢Tartakiv, Ukraine (“Tartakov” from “The Sokal Memorial Book”)
JewishGen Press Publications
As with all of 2024, the number of volumes published in the last month by the JewishGen Press is very impressive. They have now published over 200 books with four new books published just in December. This is certainly a remarkable achievement by this hard-working volunteer team and we do thank them for the new books that were published last month:- ➢Berezhany, Ukraine (Brzezany Memorial Book)
- ➢Kamyanets Podilskyy, Ukraine (Kamenets-Podolsk and its Surroundings)
- ➢Stepan, Ukraine (Our Town Stepan)
- ➢The First Part of My Life
Important links
Before ending this report, here are some important links to note:
- FaceBook Spotlight Archive Weekly Yizkor Book FaceBook spotlights.
- JewishGen Press Publications To learn all about this project and see what published books are available for purchase.
- Yizkor Book Translations Index A listing of all the community books we have online.
- Yizkor Book Translation Funds Where your financial support will assist in seeing more translations go online.
Wishing you all the best in 2025 and beyond
Lance Ackerfeld
Director of Special Projects
Yizkor Books
JewishGen.org
lackerfeld@jewishgen.org
