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Jewish Genealogy Society
of Cleveland

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We research and support programs by renowned genealogy experts and offer monthly educational programs to members (free) and non-members ($5). We meet on Zoom (and occasionally in-person following COVID regulations) typically on the first Wednesday of the month at 7 pm ET.  Advance registration is required for all programs and must be posted by midnight before the program.  Please contact our Vice President for Programming to discuss speaker opportunities and program ideas.

You can also check out the IAJGS Calendar for a listing of Jewish Genealogy Events.



Upcoming events

    • 04/15/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • Zoom only
    Register

    NOTE: The date for this event has been changed!

    Previously scheduled for April 8th, the new date is April 15th.


    One in Six Million: The Baby by the Roadside and the Man Who Retraced a Holocaust Survivor's Lost Identity

    with Amy Fish


    When:  Wednesday, April 15, 7:00pm ET

    Where:  Zoom only


    Summary

    Author Amy Fish will join us for a talk about her recent book, One in Six Million, which is both a moving Holocaust narrative and an exploration of the power of genealogical research to connect people and reveal hidden histories.


    Maria was eight months old in 1942 when a childless couple found her, wrapped in a blanket, at the side of a road near Krosno, Poland. A note pinned to the blanket stated only her first name and her date of birth. The couple picked up Maria and raised her, but she grew up longing for identity and connection. Who was she, and what had happened to her family?

    Years later, Maria’s story came to the attention of Stanley Diamond. Diamond was the founder of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland, one of the largest databases of Jewish vital records and a crucial tool in researching the stories of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

    In this engrossing story, Amy Fish shows how Diamond and an intrepid band of international volunteers compared photographs with genealogical records and smuggled DNA tests to provide Maria with family ties that she thought were lost to her forever. This is a tale of unexpected coincidences, astonishing revelations, more than a little luck, and identity lost — and found.

    Presenter:

    Amy Fish is a born sto­ry­teller with a sense of humor. She is the author of three books of non-fic­tion: The Art of Com­plain­ing Effec­tive­ly; I Want­ed Fries with That; and One in Six Mil­lion. Amy grad­u­at­ed with an MFA in Cre­ative Non-Fic­tion in 2023. She lives in Mon­tre­al where she works as the Ombudsper­son at Con­cor­dia University.

    Registration:

    This event is free for members and non-members of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland.  Registration is required by Tuesday, April 14th.  The Zoom link will be distributed upon registration and again closer to the meeting date. Please direct any questions to Jane Rothstein at president@jgscleveland.org.


    • 05/06/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • Hybrid: Congregation Mishkan Or and Zoom
    Register

    Jewish Lives Remembered: The Lost Shtetl Museum in Šeduva, Lithuania

    When: Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 7:00pm

    Where: Congregation Mishkan Or,  26000 Shaker Blvd., Beachwood, OH 44122 and via Zoom

    Description: Eighty-four years after the Jews of Šeduva, Lithuania were murdered in the Holocaust, more than 400 people from around the world gathered there in August 2025 for the opening of The Lost Shtetl Museum, including JGSC member Marlene Saul Englander and her family.

    Marlene's mother, Hinda Saul, lived in Šeduva from 1934 to 1937. Before World War II, nearly two-thirds of Šeduva’s population was Jewish. Today, no Jewish residents remain. Rather than focusing primarily on the Shoah, the museum honors the lives of the once-vibrant Jewish community, highlighting the interwar years when Jewish and non-Jewish Lithuanians lived side by side. Marlene has spoken about Seduva to us before. Come hear "the sequel" and see how her mother's mementos, stories, and letters from her friend Nochum Berman have been incorporated into the museum.

    Marlene Saul Englander is a graduate of Cleveland Heights High School, Indiana University, and Case Western Reserve University. A retired medical librarian, she is also a former treasurer and current secretary of JGS Cleveland.

    This hybrid meeting, held in-person at Congregation Mishkan Or and via Zoom, is free and open to the public. Registration by Tuesday, May 5th, is requested for all attendees. It is required for those who wish to participate via Zoom.

    Please contact Sean Martin  at smartin@wrhs.org with any questions.


    • 06/03/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • Congregation Mishkan Or and via Zoom (Hybrid)

    June Meeting and Program

    More information to come!

    • 07/01/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • Congregation Mishkan Or and via Zoom (Hybrid)
    • 08/05/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • Congregation Mishkan Or and via Zoom (Hybrid)
    • 09/02/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • Zoom only


    • 10/07/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • Congregation Mishkan Or
    • 10/18/2026
    • 10/20/2026
    • Online
    2026 International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Virtual Conference

    This year's IAJGS conference will be held online from October 18-20, 2026.  When available, details will be found at www.iajgs2026.org.
    • 11/04/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    • TBA
    • 12/06/2026
    • 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
    • Congregation Mishkan Or and via Zoom (Hybrid)

Past events

03/08/2026 The Cleveland Jewish News Keeps Our Words Alive with Abby Royer
01/07/2026 IAJGS 2025 Revisited
12/07/2025 JGSC Annual Meeting: Indiana Jewish Connections to Cleveland with Michael Brown
10/01/2025 Yom Kippur
09/22/2025 Rosh Hashanah
09/03/2025 Genealogy at Cleveland Public Library
08/10/2025 REGISTRATION IS OPEN! IAJGS 2025 Conference: "And We Settled Here... The Jewish Journey"
08/06/2025 Beyond the Jewish Press: Using Local Newspapers to Trace Small-Town Jewish Life with Austin Albanese
08/03/2025 Tisha B'Av
07/20/2025 A Reintroduction to the Cleveland Jewish Archives with Sean Martin
06/04/2025 PERSI 2.0 The New Periodical Source Index for Everyone with Sunny Jane Morton
06/01/2025 Shavuot
05/18/2025 Spring Cemetery Cleanup at Chesed Shel Emeth
05/04/2025 AI-Assisted Genealogy: The Family History of the Future with Daniel Horowitz
05/01/2025 Yom HaAtzmaut
04/30/2025 OGS 2025 Conference: Light Up Your Genealogy
04/30/2025 Yom HaZikaron
04/24/2025 JGSC Book Club: Once We Were Slaves by Laura Arnold Leibman
04/12/2025 Passover
04/02/2025 How to Use FamilySearch for Jewish Research with W. Todd Knowles
03/26/2025 ALPL Event: Discover Your Past: Solving Maternal Surname Mysteries with DNA
03/13/2025 Purim
03/06/2025 RootsTech 2025
03/05/2025 It winds from Zaturya to LA: a song of migration with Michael Shade
02/27/2025 ALPL Event: Discover Your Past: Navigating Shifting German Surnames
02/13/2025 ALPL Event: Discover Your Past: "I Have a Civil War Ancestor... Now What?"
02/09/2025 NEIJGS Event: Jewish Genealogy Gems Hidden in the Polish Archives
02/05/2025 Tracing the Lives of a Community: Ashtabula’s Early Jewish Residents and Their Legacy
01/29/2025 DATE CHANGE! - JGSC Book Club: Stranger in the Desert by Jordan Salama
01/25/2025 ALPL Event: Discover Your Past: Reconstructing Your Ancestors' Lives
01/16/2025 ALPL Event: Discover Your Past: Doing a Deep Dive in Ancestry's Collections
01/08/2025 Being Jewish in Hungary: Re-imagining Jewish Life in the 21st Century
12/25/2024 Happy Chanukah!
12/04/2024 Annual Membership Meeting and Program with Margaret Lynch
11/06/2024 Woman in Gold with Randy Schoenberg
10/16/2024 Sukkot
10/11/2024 Yom Kippur
10/02/2024 Rosh Hashanah
09/04/2024 JGSC Quarterly Board Meeting
09/04/2024 Old Jewish Cleveland and its Cemeteries with Jeffrey Morris
08/22/2024 Research Study and Road Trip to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
08/18/2024 2024 International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies (IAJGS) Annual Conference
08/11/2024 Family History and Genealogy Open House: Our Food, Celebrations, and Stories!
07/31/2024 JGSC Quarterly Board Meeting
06/11/2024 Shavuot
06/09/2024 Genealogy Discussion Group and Coffee Talk
06/05/2024 Intro to JewishGen & Jewish Genealogy with Avraham Groll
05/12/2024 CANCELLED: Genealogy Discussion Group and Coffee Talk
05/06/2024 Holocaust Remembrance Day
05/01/2024 Comparing and Choosing Genealogy Software with Chuck Weinstein
04/22/2024 Passover
04/14/2024 Genealogy Discussion Group and Coffee Talk
04/10/2024 Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS) 2024 Conference
04/03/2024 Using the Cleveland Jewish News as a Genealogy Resource with Editor Bob Jacob
03/23/2024 Purim
03/10/2024 Genealogy Discussion Group and Coffee Talk
03/06/2024 JGSC Quarterly Board Meeting
03/06/2024 Making the Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne Your Research Assistant with an Emphasis on Jewish Genealogical Research with Curt Witcher
02/11/2024 Genealogy Discussion Group and Coffee Talk
02/07/2024 Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith with Heidi B. Neumark
01/27/2024 International Holocaust Remembrance Day
01/16/2024 Last Call: MyHeritage Offer for JGS Cleveland Members Only
01/14/2024 Genealogy Discussion Group and Coffee Talk
01/03/2024 Beyond the Myths: Adventures in Jewish Genealogy with Jennifer Mendelsohn
12/06/2023 Annual Membership and Board of Trustees Meetings: Help Us Kickoff 2024 Membership with a Program and Case Study “DNA Results for the Emerging Genealogist” with Dr. Robin Selinger
11/14/2023 From the Shtetl to Ellis Island: Discovering the Journey with Leah Kaplan
11/01/2023 Researching Jewish Families in America: Focus on Lake Erie Region Resources
10/28/2023 Family History Day at the Cleveland Public Library
10/19/2023 Discover Your Past: Becoming a Genealogical Thinker Instead of a Genealogical Collector
10/12/2023 Cleveland Jewish FilmFest
10/04/2023 Why did our Jewish Ancestors Leave a Great Place Like the Pale? with Hal Bookbinder
09/06/2023 Using FamilySearch for Jewish Research and Cleveland Connections with Todd Knowles
08/20/2023 Summer Cemetery Cleanup
08/09/2023 The ABC's of Vital Records: Birth, Marriage, & Death with Deborah Abbott, PhD
07/30/2023 2023 IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy
07/12/2023 JGSC Quarterly Board Meeting
07/09/2023 Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP)
07/05/2023 U.S. Synagogue Records as a Genealogical Resource with Ellen Kowitt
06/18/2023 Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP)
06/09/2023 JGSC 40th Anniversary Program and Open House
05/21/2023 Jewish Federation of Cleveland's Spring Cemetery Cleanup
05/03/2023 Moving Your Family Memories from Nostalgia to History with Samuel Gruber, PhD
04/26/2023 2023 OGS Conference: What Brought Them Here
04/23/2023 NEOGRT Series with Daniel Horowitz (Sunday)
04/22/2023 NEOGRT Series with Daniel Horowitz (Saturday)
04/05/2023 Passover
03/29/2023 JGSC Quarterly Board Meeting
03/02/2023 RootsTech 2023
03/01/2023 Finding and Understanding Bubbe and Zayde’s Galician Vital Records with Mark Halpern
02/08/2023 ICA Art Conservation: Caring for Paintings and Frames
02/01/2023 Gone Girl: DNA and Document Strategies for Finding a VERY Long Lost Female Cousin with Rhoda Miller
01/27/2023 International Holocaust Remembrance Day
01/18/2023 Finding Your Roots: Documenting Family History in the Digital Age
01/04/2023 Researching Criminal Ancestors with Ron Arons
12/18/2022 Chanukah
12/14/2022 DIY HANUKKAH PAPERCUTTING WITH JEANETTE KUVIN OREN
12/14/2022 ICA's Conservation Highlights 2022
12/07/2022 Annual Meeting: Help Us Kickoff our 2023 Membership Drive and Take a Quick Tour of Our Online Home
11/13/2022 Exploring DNA Testing for Genealogy Research
11/09/2022 Caring for Silver
10/12/2022 Tips and Tools to Explore Military History and Make Family Connections
09/07/2022 Secrets, Lies, and Families … Let’s Talk! with Julie Klam and Diane Cole

Copyright 2026.  The Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland, Inc. (JGSC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization (EIN: 34-1648203).  All Rights Reserved.