As we are reaching the home stretch, we are putting the final touches on the program for the Jewish Genealogy Conference in Jerusalem. We have made arrangements with the Chevra Kadisha [Burial Society] to enable you to search for where your relatives might be buried in Jerusalem [only]. We are posting a downloadable .pdf on our website: http://www.isragen.org.il/ROS/Form-Jeru-Bur-Soc.pdf

This file should be printed, filled out and returned to us as instructed on the form. When you arrive at the Conference, the information will be waiting for you. We will continue this service after the conference as well, but preference until then will be given to those registered for the conference.

Warren Blatt, JewishGen's Vice President and Editor-in-Chief will represent Jewishgen at the Conference in Jerusalem. Warren's talk is entitled "JewishGen -- Past, Present and Future" and will focus on all aspects of Jewishgen databases. His sessions will take one step-by-step through the process of using JewishGen's internet databases: including both how to search the databases, and how to add one's own data. We feel his talk is so important that we have scheduled it for a plenary session on Tuesday, after the Break-the-Fast dinner at 2100, as well as on Friday morning, to ensure that Israelis will be able to be present and to learn from it.

Yad Vashem has done it again! Miriam Aviezer, an expert on Yugoslavian Jewry, will be present at Yad Vashem, in the reading room of the library, on Wednesday between 10:00 and 14:00 to help you with your research questions. Those of you with Yugoslavian roots, take note!!

Rose Lerer Cohen, co-author of the multi-volume study on the fate of Lithuanian Jewry, is also generously donating her time to help those of you with Litvak roots.. You can consult with Rose in the reading room at Yad Vashem on Tuesday, July 6, between 10:00 and noon.

Those with Hungarian roots will have the good fortune of being helped by the expert on Hungarian Jewry, Dr. Gavriel Bar Shaked, who will be at Yad Vashem from Sunday through Thursday, between 10:00 and 14:00.

In addition to these and other experts and a crew of volunteers who will be ready to help you at Yad Vashem, we will have representatives from Yad Vashem present at the Conference venue to point you in the right direction before you ever leave the hotel! Be sure that you bring with you all known details of family members that you believe were murdered in the Shoah. You will be able to fill out pages of testimony in their memory, which Yad Vashem representatives will have with them to give you at the conference. Don't let your relatives remain among the nameless, a number among the millions killed. Help rekindle their memory by filling out and handing in the Pages of Testimony so that future generations can know and honour them as well!

During the evening Event at Yad Vashem on Monday afternoon and evening, one of the very poignant moments will be when each person goes to the beautiful Valley of the Lost Communities to locate the stone bearing the mention of the communities from which his family came and whose Jewish population was decimated in World War II. There too, you will have the opportunity to honour your murdered family members and their community by remembering them in your own special way in the Valley of the Lost Communities.

And then, as they would have wanted, we will celebrate life in the evening program at Yad Vashem: Am Yisrael Chai! Make sure you bring a sweater and warm clothing. Nights are cool in Jerusalem, even in summer.

* In the Customs Hall itself (where passengers collect their baggage) there is an ATM on the wall opposite conveyor No.4. There is also a Change Place office next to conveyor No. 4 (not manned 24Hrs). There is also another Change Place office opposite Conveyor No. 3, as well as a machine which exchanges notes from/into different currencies.

* Immediately outside the Customs Hall (i.e. having gone through the exit after Customs), there is another ATM on the back wall, to the right, of the Meeters and Greeters Area

* In the general area of the Terminal (going in through gate No.3 - the only Gate usually open for this area), there's an ATM just a couple of metres to the right of Gate 3, and another a dozen metres to the left of Gate 3. In addition, there are Change Place offices immediately to the right of Gate 3, as well as to the right of Gate 4.

With these clear instructions as a map to guide you, you should have no problem getting all the money you think you might need!

We are happy to announce that the events planned for the afternoon and evening of Monday, 5 July at Yad Vashem, will take place entirely in the Valley of the Communities, under the delightful summer skies of Jerusalem. This setting is so touching and moving that it will provide the perfect backdrop for both marking the memories of our murdered families and celebrating the joys of the continuation and endurance of Jewish life. It is really the perfect setting for this wonderful and moving evening.

Yad Vashem has informed us that due to the logistics, they cannot accept any last minute reservations, so please, in order not to be disappointed, make sure that you register for this unique event before the Conference begins. If you have already registered for the Conference but not the events at Yad Vashem, you can modify your registration by using the password that came with your registration confirmation. Go to the online registration page at http://www.jewishgen.org/jerusalem2004 and click the hyperlink for updating your online registration.

The CAHJP will remain open for additional hours during the Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, 6 and 7 July, the archives will remain open until 18:00. However, there is one caveat. The archives can hold at any one time only about 10 researchers. Hadassah Assouline, the director of CAHJP, has asked that you reserve a place at the archives if you intend to do research there. I would suggest you do two things: go to http://www.jewishgen.org/jerusalem2004 , click on "Archives and Research" in the left hand column and then click on the Central Archives on the page that comes up. That will take you directly to their page and you will be able to see what area resources are available. Try to order your material in advance, if you find it on the website. That way it will be at the archives waiting for you, and you will be able to begin without delay.

The second thing you should do is to download the newest version [which will be put up today] of the conference program from the the website noted above, to see when you will have a two-hour span free. When you write to Hadassah to reserve space at the archives, you could indicate the hours you intend to come. We would like to reserve archive time for conference participants who do not live in Israel, since their time will be very limited.

Hadassah's addreses:
"The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People";
archives@vms.huji.ac.il

Volunteers will be at the archive to help you find material. Translators will be available at the conference for translating the sources you will have had photocopied at the archives.

Yad Vashem is pulling out all the stops to make any visit there during the Conference a mechaiyah! Not only have they extended their hours for Conference participants, but they have decided to give us the expertise of Dr. Gavriel Bar-Shaked, the editor of "Nevek" series and an expert on Hungarian names. Dr. Bar-Shaked will be available for consultation in the reading room at Yad Vashem during the conference, Sunday through Thursday from 10:00 to 14:00! If you have any Hungarian antecedents, here's your chance to find out more with a private consultation from a world expert!

Make sure you get a lot of rest before coming to the Jewish genealogy conference in Jerusalem, because you are going to be so involved and busy during the week of the conference that you will neither have the time nor the desire to rest!

The Archives of the JDC are preparing for researchers from the Jerusalem 2004 Conference the week of 4 July. Under normal circumstances, they are not set up for more than a tiny number of users. However, for the Conference, they are preparing a special adjoining room which they will furnish with microfilm readers and special material of interest to us. They are planning to open this room on Tuesday and Thursday between 15:00 and 18:00 and on Wednesday between 08:00 and 10:00. The JDC Archive is very flexible and willing to open this room additional hours as well. They have asked that you register with them so they can get some idea of how many people to expect.

What can you expect to find at the JDC? They have a microfilm made from registration cards of people seeking help during World War II through Joint offices in Munich, Vienna and Barcelona. This comprises some 80,000 names with family details. After the war, the Joint had a location office in Istambul which tried to locate refugees and lost families. These records are also available. And finally, there is a list of survivors, which, alas, does not have a search engine. This list is arranged according to location, and then by family names arranged alphabetically. The JDC lists include additional information that is not available at Yad Vashem.

If you wish to do research at the JDC Archives during the Conference, please send an email to them at archives@jdc.org.il

As we are reaching the home stretch, we are putting the final touches on the program for the Jewish Genealogy Conference in Jerusalem. We have made arrangements with the Chevra Kadisha [Burial Society] to enable you to search for where your relatives might be buried in Jerusalem [only]. We are posting a downloadable .pdf on our website: http://www.isragen.org.il/ROS/Form-Jeru-Bur-Soc.pdf
This file should be printed, filled out and returned to us as instructed on the form. When you arrive at the Conference, the information will be waiting for you. We will continue this service after the conference as well, but preference until then will be given to those registered for the conference.

Yad Vashem - Extended Hours

Yad Vashem has informed us that they have extended their hours for research during the conference. Their hours for the week of 4 - 9 July will be as follows:
Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 8:30 am-7:00 pm.
Storerooms (containing most of the books and all the archival material) close at 5:00 pm. but the reading room will remain open until 7:00pm.
Monday: 8:30 am-5:00 pm. Storerooms close at 3:30 pm.
Friday: 8:30-12:30. Storerooms close at 11:00.
Note: The names database and computerized indexes are available on the computers in the reading room, and in extra rooms which will be opened according to need. The information desk at the entrance to the reading room will be able to direct you to these overflow rooms.

Our volunteers will be available to help you with foreign languages.

Everything is special about Jerusalem - the air, the colours, the spirituality, the history, the archives and libraries, the people - and now, the conference! There will be some 173 presentations by speakers from 16 different countries! Most of the talks will break new ground and cast light on aspects of your families that you might not have encountered before. Version C of the program was put up last week and version D, with the final placements of the SIGs and BOFs, will go up within the week. You can look forward to 7 computer workshops and 12 self running Powerpoint presentations.

Don't forget to check out the pre- and post-conference tours, especially designed for conference participants!

For those of you with daily registrations [as opposed to registering for the week], you may want to make sure that you order a copy of the syllabus and the conference CDs, since these are not part of the packet that you will receive from the conference. The Family Finder, with the names of your family research as well as all others, will be found in the Syllabus and on the Conference CD. Any conference goer will be able to consult both of these publications in the Resource Room at the Confernce.

There is good reason why Jerusalem was renowned in antiquity as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. There is no place on earth quite like it. The beauty of her stone-faced buildings is incomparable; the spirituality of Jerusalem is tangible. Her antiquities, thousands of years old, surround one with the echoes of history and the memories of our forefathers.

Appropriately, Yad Vashem was established on one of the beautiful hills of Jerusalem, hills rich with history and echoing with the voices of our ancestors. Yad Vashem was created to document and preserve the memory of our families murdered in the Shoah. At the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, we have planned a rich and moving program together with Yad Vashem, which will honour our families and provide continuity to our history.

After the Genealogy Bus shuttle shepherds us from the hotel to Yad Vashem on Monday afternoon, 5 July, we will enjoy two plenary sessions by the senior staff from the Archives and the Hall of Names. Avner Shalev, Director of Yad Vashem, will open the event with a talk entitled "Yad Vashem at the Beginning of the 21st Century." The team will detail current archival resources and research tactics, as well as unveil to us their vision for the future. Sessions will then be divided up into a choice of lectures given simultaneously by various Holocaust scholars. After that, we will disperse to the monumental Valley of the Communities, a vast memorial to the more than 5,000 Jewish communities destroyed or shattered in the Shoah. Here each of us will have the opportunity, as we wander through the stone courtyards, to locate the names of our families' communities and to hold a private memorial service to honour their memory.

Be sure to bring a sweater or warm clothing since Jerusalem nights can be very cool, even in the summer!

After a light supper, the program will conclude in the auditorium with an evening of Jewish music and culture, with films and live performances by folk singer Shuli Natan [Yerushalayim shel Zahav] and the delightful children's Harmonica Orchestra of Ramat Gan. The evening's master of ceremonies will be Beni Hendel. Am Yisrael Chai!

The GenealogyBus will return us to the Hotel to get a good night's rest to prepare us for the bustling Conference activities of the next day.