The Yizkor Book Project

Program Description:  The Yizkor Book Project, as an integral part of JewishGen, facilitates translations of Yizkor books and other research documents, digitization of books for internet searches, and creation of tables of contents, and necrologies for ease of searching for the names of relatives. This JGSLA program features Susan Rosin, a JewishGen Press Publication Manager, who will explain what she does to make these valuable books available to researchers in English. If you have ever read a Yizkor book in English about the town of your ancestors or an essay about your ancestor in a Yizkor book, you know how valuable these books are for genealogical research. To date, 100 complete books have been translated and are online thanks to volunteers like Susan Rosin.

Biography: Born in Poland to two Holocaust survivors from the former Galicia (now part of the Ukraine), Susan Rosin grew up in Israel. She received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the Technion in Haifa, Israel, and an M.S. degree in Biochemistry from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. After moving to the US with her spouse and children, she became a software developer, retiring as a software development manager from a major financial company.  Inspired to start the genealogical research of her family by a (non-Jewish) coworker and hitting the proverbial “brick wall” she decided to give back to JewishGen.  She translated the entire 700+ pages Yizkor book of her mother’s town (published in 2018) and then started on the book of her father’s town. She proceeded to lead the indexing project of Yizkor books and in 2021 became JewishGen Press Publication Manager. She is presently working with a team on three books.

*There is ample free street parking on Sunday on surrounding streets.  Limited handicapped parking is available in the rear of the synagogue.  If you need to park in the synagogue parking lot, please let us know RSVP. The entrance to the synagogue is from the alley behind the building. Ring the buzzer on the parking lot gate.