Queens NY: ‘Tree of Life’ screening, May 23

Queens residents can see the acclaimed “The Tree of Life” by Hava Volterra, closer to home as it will be screened at 10 pm, Saturday, May 23, at the Utopia Jewish Center in Flushing.

Hava Volterra tries to come to terms with her father’s death by traveling to Italy to trace the roots of her family tree. With the help of her feisty 82 year-old aunt, she travels relentlessly from city to city, digging through ancient manuscripts and interviewing a wide range of quirky scholars.

Using Monty Python-style animation along with music from Golden Globe-nominated composer Carlo Siliotto, the documentary tells the story of Jewish mystics, money lenders, scientists and politicians.

Hilarious and emotionally gripping, the film is a fresh look at history.

The Jewish Week wrote:

“the project is clearly Volterra’s way of reconciling herself to her father’s death. In an age of embarrassing and unedifying frankness about family matters, her reticence is refreshing. You can read all you need to know from what is there on the screen and for that alone, “The Tree of Life” is a refreshing and fascinating change of pace.”

The Village Voice wrote:

“…. in the town of Volterra that gave her family its name, she digs up a pretty interesting family tree and a truly fascinating history of Italian-Jewish life from the 15th century through the Holocaust, enhanced by interviews with historians in Italy and Israel and some nifty animation and marionette puppetry

Tickets are $10. Contact the Utopia Jewish Center in Flushing for more information.

Thanks to Hadassah Lipsius, who provided this pointer.

Film Festival at Philly 2009

Pamela Weisberger informed Tracing the Tribe about the Philly 2009 Film Festival. The schedule will soon be uploaded to the online program and we’ll let you know when that happens.

There is always something to do at an international Jewish genealogy conference and Pam has organized a great line-up of films as well as many producers, writers and directors who will introduce their films and do Q&As following the screenings.

In the meantime, here’s a peek at what will be screened. Remember to go to Philly 2009 for all conference details.

International:

– The Jews of India: “In Search of the Bene Israel”
– Prague: “House of Life: The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague” with filmmaker Mark Podwal)
– Italy: “The Tree of Life” with filmmaker Hava Volterra
– Libya: “The Last Jews of Libya”
– Cuba: “Abraham & Eugenia”
– South America: “The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America” with filmmaker Gabriela Bohm)
– Austria: “Vienna’s Lost Daughters”
– South Africa: “Lest We Forget”
– Lithuania: “The Partisans of Vilna”

New Films – Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Experience:

– “Against the Tide”: narrated by Dustin Hoffman. The attitudes of President Roosevelt and his senior advisers, who used the pretext of winning the war against the Nazis to block any Jewish immigration to the U.S. and juxtaposes the events in America with heart-wrenching heroic stories of the doomed Jews of Europe and the leaders of Polish Jewry who had faith that their powerful brothers and sisters in the United States would somehow be able to save them.

– “Blessed is the Match”: First documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Senesh joined a mission to rescue Jews in her native Hungary. Shockingly, it was the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust.

– “We Were Exodus”: Archival footage with contemporary interviews, recounting the voyage of Exodus, a ship that was haven and prison to thousands of Holocaust survivors. Meticulously researched and artfully composed, “We Were Exodus” invites viewers aboard one of the 20th century’s most famous vessels to relive this milestone in the creation of Israel.

– “Captain László Ocskay, The Forgotten Hero”: A Hungarian army officer whose heroic deeds saved the lives of hundreds of Jews in Budapest have all but been forgotten. Attending the screening to discuss it will be Miskolc native John Kovacs, who escaped deportation to Auschwitz and ended up in the Abonyi Street Jewish School featured in the film.

The Philadelphia Jewish Experience:

– “Echoes of a Ghost Minyan”: A speaker will attend.
– “Philly Hoops: The SPAHS and Warriors”: A speaker will attend.
– “From Philadelphia to the Front”: One of the few few documentaries to explore the stories of Jewish-American World War II soldiers, focusing on six Philadelphia octogenerian veterans, their wartime experiences and a bittersweet reunion.
– “Tak for Alt”: The life of Philadelphia educator and Survivor Judy Meisel, whose experiences in the Kovno ghetto and Stutthof Concentration Camp inspired a life-long campaign against racism.

Eastern Europe:

– “Horodok: A Shtetl’s Story: 1920-1940” retells the vibrant life of an Eastern European Jewish village with rare 1930s archival silent movie footage with Israeli survivors’ recollections.

– “Bashert”: Two cousins return to their grandfathers’ shtetl that they left in 1908A series of miraculous incidents lead to previously unknown family members who survived and returned to Linitz (Ilintsy, Ukraine).

– “No. 4 Street House of Our Lady”: If your neighbors were being hunted down and came to your door begging for help, would you risk your life to save theirs? The remarkable, little-known, story of Polish-Catholic Francisca Halamajowa who rescued 16 Jewish neighbors while passing as a Nazi sympathizer. In Sokal (Galicia->Ukraine)more than6,000 Jews lived there pre-war; only 30 survived, half rescued by Halamajowa. Attending to discuss the film will be Lviv-based researcher Alexander Denisenko who assisted in researching the film.

– “Terpe Kind Mains, Terpe Persevere, My Child, Persevere”: To discuss the film will be New Jersey-born composer Jeffrey Hamburg of Amsterdam. He returns to Ukraine to discover his ancestors’ world and demonstrates how an individual search leads to a universal composition on searching, commemorating and coming home.

Humor:

– “The Beetle”: The heartwarming, hilarious genealogy of an old Volkswagen owned by an Israeli. Torn between the responsibility of fatherhood and an irrational passion
for his sputtering car, Yishai track down the past owners to understand the car’s rich history.

– “His Wife’s Lover” (Zayn Vaybs Lubovnik): In 1931, this Yiddish film was billed as “the first Jewish musical comedy talking picture,” starring popular Yiddish theater comedian Ludwig Satz in his only film. Fast-paced, song-filled comedy shot on the Lower East Side, includes role reversals and love triangles and explores gender issues.

– “My Mexican Shiva”: Entertaining, wacky comedy set in a Mexico City Jewish neighborhood, focusing on the death of a man and the celebration of his life. The seven-day shiva reunites family, friends and former lovers; sidesplitting stories, conflicts and rivalries are cataloged over the mourning period.

– “The Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt”: For all of us Catskill kids who spent hotel and bungalow vacations, where Jewish-American
iconoclastic humor was born.

Back by Popular Demand:

– “Genealogy Goes to the Movies” with Jordan Auslander, who updates last year’s hilarious experience recreating the excitement, drama, adventure, glamour and – yes – romance of family history research in kitschy, classic clips from popular films and TV shows.

The True Bielski Boys Experience:

– “Defiance”: Hollywood feature starring Daniel Craig, about the partisans who created a thriving shtetl deep in the Western Belarus forests while conducting sabotage missions against the Nazis. Introduced by Tuvia Bielski’s granddaughter Sharon Rennart.

– “The Bielski Partisans: A Granddaughter’s Story”: Award-winning filmmaker Sharon Rennart will also present her own program detailing her 11-year journey around the world from Brooklyn to Belarus, Israel and Lithuania. She will discuss her family’s history and screen excerpts from a work-in-progress documentary, “In Our Hands: A Personal Portrait of the Bielski Partisans”. Excerpts include exclusive family movies, photos and oral histories for a glimpse at the real characters behind “Defiance.”

– “On Moral Grounds”: The story of WWII restitutions and those who have sought justice for 50 years from insurance companies who perpetrated wrongs on survivors.

– “Saved by Deportation”: Filmmaker Robert Podgursky will speak about his film which is based in 1940, a year before the Nazis began deporting Jews to death camps. Stalin orders the deportation of some 200,000 Polish Jews from Russian-occupied Eastern Poland to forced labor settlements in Central Asia. Asher and Shyfra Scharf are followed as they return to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and are warmly welcomed by locals who recall the refugees.

Short Films:

– “The Holocaust Tourist”: A whistle-stop tour from Auschwitz hot-dogs to Krakow’s kitsch Judaica that asks how dark tourism is changing history.

– “Toyland (Spielzeugland)” This year’s Oscar winner for best live-action short film. In 1942 Nazi Germany, a young boy’s mother answers her son’s question about the whereabouts of his best friend whose family has been deported. She tells him the boy has been sent to Toyland, and he sneaks off to join him.

– “OBCY” (Alien VI): New Polish short. A young Jewish man appears in a tranquil Polish village years after shameful local memories of WWII have faded. The villagers react in surprisingly diverse ways, reflecting ambivalent attitudes toward their past.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Two conference regulars will introduce episodes with which they were personally involved. “The Esther Rantzan story”: Hadassah Lipsius researched Warszawa microfilms for vital record information on the well-known UK newscaster’s family. “The Zoe Wanamaker Story”: Gayle Riley will introduce the story of her actor relative with a plot moving from Minsk to reading a father’s FBI files.

Films will be screened beginning Sunday afternoon August 2 through Friday, August 7, including during lunch and dinner breaks and with evening screenings.

Film Festival at Philly 2009

Pamela Weisberger informed Tracing the Tribe about the Philly 2009 Film Festival. The schedule will soon be uploaded to the online program and we’ll let you know when that happens.

There is always something to do at an international Jewish genealogy conference and Pam has organized a great line-up of films as well as many producers, writers and directors who will introduce their films and do Q&As following the screenings.

In the meantime, here’s a peek at what will be screened. Remember to go to Philly 2009 for all conference details.

International:

– The Jews of India: “In Search of the Bene Israel”
– Prague: “House of Life: The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague” with filmmaker Mark Podwal)
– Italy: “The Tree of Life” with filmmaker Hava Volterra
– Libya: “The Last Jews of Libya”
– Cuba: “Abraham & Eugenia”
– South America: “The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America” with filmmaker Gabriela Bohm)
– Austria: “Vienna’s Lost Daughters”
– South Africa: “Lest We Forget”
– Lithuania: “The Partisans of Vilna”

New Films – Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Experience:

– “Against the Tide”: narrated by Dustin Hoffman. The attitudes of President Roosevelt and his senior advisers, who used the pretext of winning the war against the Nazis to block any Jewish immigration to the U.S. and juxtaposes the events in America with heart-wrenching heroic stories of the doomed Jews of Europe and the leaders of Polish Jewry who had faith that their powerful brothers and sisters in the United States would somehow be able to save them.

– “Blessed is the Match”: First documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Senesh joined a mission to rescue Jews in her native Hungary. Shockingly, it was the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust.

– “We Were Exodus”: Archival footage with contemporary interviews, recounting the voyage of Exodus, a ship that was haven and prison to thousands of Holocaust survivors. Meticulously researched and artfully composed, “We Were Exodus” invites viewers aboard one of the 20th century’s most famous vessels to relive this milestone in the creation of Israel.

– “Captain László Ocskay, The Forgotten Hero”: A Hungarian army officer whose heroic deeds saved the lives of hundreds of Jews in Budapest have all but been forgotten. Attending the screening to discuss it will be Miskolc native John Kovacs, who escaped deportation to Auschwitz and ended up in the Abonyi Street Jewish School featured in the film.

The Philadelphia Jewish Experience:

– “Echoes of a Ghost Minyan”: A speaker will attend.
– “Philly Hoops: The SPAHS and Warriors”: A speaker will attend.
– “From Philadelphia to the Front”: One of the few few documentaries to explore the stories of Jewish-American World War II soldiers, focusing on six Philadelphia octogenerian veterans, their wartime experiences and a bittersweet reunion.
– “Tak for Alt”: The life of Philadelphia educator and Survivor Judy Meisel, whose experiences in the Kovno ghetto and Stutthof Concentration Camp inspired a life-long campaign against racism.

Eastern Europe:

– “Horodok: A Shtetl’s Story: 1920-1940” retells the vibrant life of an Eastern European Jewish village with rare 1930s archival silent movie footage with Israeli survivors’ recollections.

– “Bashert”: Two cousins return to their grandfathers’ shtetl that they left in 1908A series of miraculous incidents lead to previously unknown family members who survived and returned to Linitz (Ilintsy, Ukraine).

– “No. 4 Street House of Our Lady”: If your neighbors were being hunted down and came to your door begging for help, would you risk your life to save theirs? The remarkable, little-known, story of Polish-Catholic Francisca Halamajowa who rescued 16 Jewish neighbors while passing as a Nazi sympathizer. In Sokal (Galicia->Ukraine)more than6,000 Jews lived there pre-war; only 30 survived, half rescued by Halamajowa. Attending to discuss the film will be Lviv-based researcher Alexander Denisenko who assisted in researching the film.

– “Terpe Kind Mains, Terpe Persevere, My Child, Persevere”: To discuss the film will be New Jersey-born composer Jeffrey Hamburg of Amsterdam. He returns to Ukraine to discover his ancestors’ world and demonstrates how an individual search leads to a universal composition on searching, commemorating and coming home.

Humor:

– “The Beetle”: The heartwarming, hilarious genealogy of an old Volkswagen owned by an Israeli. Torn between the responsibility of fatherhood and an irrational passion
for his sputtering car, Yishai track down the past owners to understand the car’s rich history.

– “His Wife’s Lover” (Zayn Vaybs Lubovnik): In 1931, this Yiddish film was billed as “the first Jewish musical comedy talking picture,” starring popular Yiddish theater comedian Ludwig Satz in his only film. Fast-paced, song-filled comedy shot on the Lower East Side, includes role reversals and love triangles and explores gender issues.

– “My Mexican Shiva”: Entertaining, wacky comedy set in a Mexico City Jewish neighborhood, focusing on the death of a man and the celebration of his life. The seven-day shiva reunites family, friends and former lovers; sidesplitting stories, conflicts and rivalries are cataloged over the mourning period.

– “The Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt”: For all of us Catskill kids who spent hotel and bungalow vacations, where Jewish-American
iconoclastic humor was born.

Back by Popular Demand:

– “Genealogy Goes to the Movies” with Jordan Auslander, who updates last year’s hilarious experience recreating the excitement, drama, adventure, glamour and – yes – romance of family history research in kitschy, classic clips from popular films and TV shows.

The True Bielski Boys Experience:

– “Defiance”: Hollywood feature starring Daniel Craig, about the partisans who created a thriving shtetl deep in the Western Belarus forests while conducting sabotage missions against the Nazis. Introduced by Tuvia Bielski’s granddaughter Sharon Rennart.

– “The Bielski Partisans: A Granddaughter’s Story”: Award-winning filmmaker Sharon Rennart will also present her own program detailing her 11-year journey around the world from Brooklyn to Belarus, Israel and Lithuania. She will discuss her family’s history and screen excerpts from a work-in-progress documentary, “In Our Hands: A Personal Portrait of the Bielski Partisans”. Excerpts include exclusive family movies, photos and oral histories for a glimpse at the real characters behind “Defiance.”

– “On Moral Grounds”: The story of WWII restitutions and those who have sought justice for 50 years from insurance companies who perpetrated wrongs on survivors.

– “Saved by Deportation”: Filmmaker Robert Podgursky will speak about his film which is based in 1940, a year before the Nazis began deporting Jews to death camps. Stalin orders the deportation of some 200,000 Polish Jews from Russian-occupied Eastern Poland to forced labor settlements in Central Asia. Asher and Shyfra Scharf are followed as they return to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and are warmly welcomed by locals who recall the refugees.

Short Films:

– “The Holocaust Tourist”: A whistle-stop tour from Auschwitz hot-dogs to Krakow’s kitsch Judaica that asks how dark tourism is changing history.

– “Toyland (Spielzeugland)” This year’s Oscar winner for best live-action short film. In 1942 Nazi Germany, a young boy’s mother answers her son’s question about the whereabouts of his best friend whose family has been deported. She tells him the boy has been sent to Toyland, and he sneaks off to join him.

– “OBCY” (Alien VI): New Polish short. A young Jewish man appears in a tranquil Polish village years after shameful local memories of WWII have faded. The villagers react in surprisingly diverse ways, reflecting ambivalent attitudes toward their past.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Two conference regulars will introduce episodes with which they were personally involved. “The Esther Rantzan story”: Hadassah Lipsius researched Warszawa microfilms for vital record information on the well-known UK newscaster’s family. “The Zoe Wanamaker Story”: Gayle Riley will introduce the story of her actor relative with a plot moving from Minsk to reading a father’s FBI files.

Films will be screened beginning Sunday afternoon August 2 through Friday, August 7, including during lunch and dinner breaks and with evening screenings.

Some blog glitches being worked on!

Hello, Tracing the Tribe readers!

Tracing the Tribe is experiencing some strange glitches in a few areas. We are in contact with tech support for possible incompatibilities of some widgets, and hope to make corrections soon.

Some readers are also experiencing problems when clicking on the Tracing the Tribe links on Facebook. We think we know what the cause is and we’re working to fix it very soon.

Thank you to readers who notified me of these problems so that they may be addressed.

If you experience any glitches at any time, please let me know.

Google: Searching with options

One of the best things about our geneablogging community is that we are often inspired by our colleagues.

Randy Seaver’s Genea-Musings post on Google Options, which followed Dick Eastman’s post on the same subject, was interesting. I hadn’t had time to previously check out these new features, but it seemed like a fun idea now.

Having a bit of time available, I decided to try some WonderWheel searches, anticipating searches on variations of DARDASHTI, TALALAY, TALALAI, TOLLIN and some others.

– “talalay” = 248,000, included the foam rubber Talalay process (patented by the Mogilev-Moscow-USA branch) and family members.

– “talalai” = 4,800, many from the Polish-origin group from New Jersey, works by known St. Petersburg and Moscow cousins, and other interesting results.

– “tollin” = 230,000, many people I knew, many I thought might be connected, as well as a bunch of Swedes, whom I doubt are connected. Where’s a DNA testkit when you need one?

– “tallin” = 1,980,000, the majority on Tallin, Estonia, not about Talalay relatives who changed their name to Tallin, like Uncle David in Newark, New Jersey.

I went on to “schelly dardashti” “Schelly Talalay Dardashti” “tracing the tribe” and “tracing the tribe the jewish genealogy blog”.

The results were a bit mind-boggling on the straight searches, and the WonderWheel and Timeline results were also interesting and quite different – with some very pleasant surprises.

The “schelly dardashti” WonderWheel produced this with 548 results:

The “schelly talalay dardashti” WonderWheel looked like this with 5,450 results:

The “Tracing the Tribe” WonderWheel showed 49,500 hits:

The “tracing the tribe” (all lowercase) WonderWheel showed 49,700 hits:

“tracing the tribe the jewish genealogy blog” produced 9,880 hits but with no spokes. I assume there were too many categories. The last WonderWheel search was for “the jewish genealogy blog” for 9,960 hits.

If you click on any spoke of the center circle, you get an additional related WonderWheel with more terms and different numbers of hits. Try it out yourself.

The Timeline option produced the least number of hits for all searches. I am as confused as Randy about this option, as I indicate many years in my blog postings. Hits for searches conducted were “schelly dardashti” 10; “schelly talalay dardashti” 88; “tracing the tribe” 22; and “tracing the tribe the jewish genealogy blog” 4.

In any case, there were some very pleasant surprises.

The first search produced a Los Angeles Daily News article (March 10, 1990) about a Persian Shabbat I organized at our synagogue, Valley Beth Shalom. Honestly, I had completely forgotten that the paper had covered it – I’m now trying to get access to the full 450+ word article (only a snippet shows), which is at NewsBank.com.

It also called up a May 6, 1998 Las Vegas Review Journal story about a program we ran at Jewish Genealogy Society of Southern Nevada-East (now dissolved), which met at Midbar Kodesh congregation in Henderson. I remembered that story, but didn’t have a copy of it.

There were a slew of Jerusalem Post-related items.

Using a Timeline search for “schelly talalay dardashti,” which became my nom de plume around 1999 when I began writing for the Jerusalem Post, there were 88 hits, again with many JPost stories on genealogy, food, travel and other features. The search also pulled ads and other stories on the same page as my stories.

Just for the heck of it, I searched “it’s all relative” jerusalem post to see what that would bring up (“It’s All Relative” was the name of my gen column). The 49 hits included some interesting items I had forgotten. How time flies when we’re having fun!

Using Google Search, I typed “schelly dardashti” in the box; in the “related” box underneath, it showed 6,180 results for this search. For “schelly talalay dardashti”, the “related” list showed 4,350 hits. When I hit on those names however, the numbers were rather different. Schelly Dardashti showed 550 and Schelly Talalay Dardashti showed 5,450. “Tracing the Tribe” produced 78,600 hits.

The most interesting part was finding mentions of Tracing the Tribe in places (journal and magazine articles, other genealogy blogs, etc.) that I hadn’t known about. Now I have quite a few thank-you notes to write!

Bottom line: Whether you’re a blogger, a family historian or merely curious, conducting searches with these options for your families of interest or yourself might turn up some valuable – or at least interesting – items.

I’m interested in learning what you’ve discovered about your own families!