One family's food

Some time ago, two researchers who shared the same shtetl kicked around the idea of writing a shtetl cookbook together. As things go, we became sidetracked by other matters - even though we believed it would have been a wonderful project. There are only so many hours in a day!

Thus, I was delighted to learn that Judy Bart Kancigor has accomplished what many of us wish we could do if we were more focused or had more time. She's gathered more than 500 Rabinowitz family recipes into Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family (Workman, 2007).

Florida: Jewish family database

Most people think of Florida as the home of retirees, of snowbirds who spend the warm sunny winters in their escape from cold weather and as the center of Cuban life in the US.

Jewish genealogists, however, know that Florida can be a potential goldmine when looking for family connections.

I learned early on that if you couldn't find relatives in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago or other cold climes - where you knew they had settled - it was worth checking out Miami Beach, Hollywood or Fort Lauderdale, including the cemeteries.

Israeli genealogy website offers major upgrade

A favorite site of mine is MyHeritage.com, based in Bnei Atarot, near Tel Aviv.

I've known its CEO, Gilad Japhet, for a number of years and have written stories on the company along the way.  He has also spoken to several Jewish genealogy groups in Israel and at the 2006 International Jewish genealogy conference in New York.

Many readers will recognize MyHeritage as the web site behind the "Find the Celebrity in You" which utilizes its rather amazing image handling capabilities.

The site has nearly 20 million members,   offers an easy-to-use online Family Tree Builder and family websites. Components are also offered in 15 different languages, as well as dual entry. In other words you can enter a tree in Hebrew and English, in English and French, in Spanish and French and many other languages, which will make it easy to share with family in different countries.