Rabbi Bill Gordon

I am very sorry to inform the membership that we have recently learned of the recent passing of Rabbi Bill Gordon, a longtime member of JGSLA. Our most profound condolences go to his wife, Deena, and to the rest of his family and friends. May his memory be for a blessing.

For further info, click here.

I vant you!

Dear Members:
This blog is supposed to be interactive!  Please post anything you think the rest of the members would be interested to know about!  Any interesting research finds?  Any news that our membership would be interested in hearing about? You can also make comments on existing posts, and if you do, it will make the blog all that much more interesting to read, and also help us to get to know each other better!

Sandy Malek (your President and moderator of this blog.)

JewishData.com is the newest JGSLA member feature!

Have you renewed your membership for 2010 yet? If you did, you will have received an email dated Jan 6, 2010 giving access to JewishData.com.  If not, don’t delay sending your renewal, so that you can enjoy this new membership benefit. Here is a response from our member Barbara Nevens written upon receipt of this new membership benefit:

Sandy,
What a wonderful benefit. Even without the password, I was taken down a whole new path just by finding the name of the cemetery where my husband’s paternal grandfather is interred. The cemetery has a searchable site and, together with the NY death index on italiangen, I was able to learn the date of death and obtain a copy of his dc. Until then, I was never certain that he had emigrated from Russia. Now with access to photos, I’ll never come up for air!

I should add that Bobby Furst helped me find a number of other family members once I had found “Grandpa” on JewishData. The others are not on that site but she managed to find them elsewhere within a few days while I had been searching for them for several years. The woman is a genius!

Thank you,
Barbara Nevens

Each year the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles elects one-third of its 12 Directors to three-year terms. In October, a nominating committee reviews applicants and recommends a slate of nominees to the Board of Directors. The nominees are announced at the November membership meeting, and the election for Directors takes place at the December membership meeting. Nominees must have been members for one year prior to being nominated.

The Board meets about once a month, usually on Monday evenings at the homes of Directors.  Serving on the Board gives one the opportunity to set the direction for our Society, and to help in deciding on programming, acquisitions for our library, and other activities of the Society. There are some responsibilities that our president has identified for which help is needed at this time, including:

1. Hospitality… someone responsible for coordinating refreshments for meetings, including picking up items, making sure everything that is needed gets to the meeting.
2. Communications / Outreach… coordinating members who are willing to provide flyers about our meetings to the organizations with which they are involved, and providing our meeting information to a database of organizations in Los Angeles.

If you are interested in serving on the Board of Directors please provide some information about any special skills or experience you would bring to the board, and indicate any preferred area in which you would like to serve. If you have any questions please contact me via phone or email.

Sonia Hoffman, Nominating Committee Chairperson
Email – soniahoff1@aol.com

Nominating Committee:
Susan Wichter
Bobby Furst
Madeleine Isenberg
Marion Diamond

We are saddened to note the passing of our longterm member Budd Levine. Our condolences to his wife Bunny and his family.