Email Sign-Up the field is genealogy hovers somewhere between a used-car salesman and a Nigerian politician The joke of the rabbi willing to grant someone kehunah in exchange for a donation is funny but genealogy websites that can give you any number of yichus plums for a subscription fee are commonplace The founder of JRI-Poland.org — JRI standing for Jewish Records Indexing — has been a fount of knowledge about the ancestors of the millions of descendants of Polish Jews who are spread around the world today I reached him just after he celebrated his 90th birthday with a virtual party thrown by the army of volunteers who power his non-profit organization JRI-Poland was founded in 1995 after Diamond then a retired business executive living in Montreal began researching his genetic makeup to the origins of the genetic trait he carries He is married to the former Ruth Mirjam Peerlkamp of Amsterdam The group is funded by suggested donations from people who were helped by it helped confirm Polish-born Yisroel Kristal’s status as the world’s oldest living man in 2016 The interview took a dramatic turn in the middle when we discovered that we were… Or just read it to find out “You know what they told me in cheder?” he said “That there’s no such name as Sholem Mendel; you have to pick one or the other Let me preface this interview by saying that I may not be as articulate as I’d like to be at this time of night or 1 o’clock because JRI-Poland is a 24/7 activity There’s always something new — new messages Is there a certain time zone that you aim to be in sync with At 12:30 AM I could be getting emails from Israel The field of genealogy has exploded in the past couple of years and genealogy is something that is time intensive so people started researching their family history I’m going to send you an article that appeared in the Harvard Business School alumni magazine this month in which I am featured with four other people and that article talks about the business of genealogy I was in Oman — I spent ten years traveling in the Arab world and no one knew I was Jewish from 1975 to 1984 — when I learned from my wife that my nephew who was also at Harvard Business School 20 years after me learned that he carried a genetic trait called beta thalassemia beta thalassemia was almost unknown in Ashkenazic populations did a complete work-up at the Jewish General Hospital on all my family We discovered that all four of my father’s children carried the trait and that my father was the carrier we have been able to trace the trait back to 1760 The important part was because Ashkenazim weren’t thinking of beta thalassemia as the cause for mild chronic anemia there’s the danger of two carriers marrying that’s why people are tested for Tay-Sachs But what was interesting from my point of view is that among Italians but in the non-Orthodox communities in the United States the extent of marriage between Italians and Jews is amazing There are Italians in every branch of my family it was very important for me to find and warn members of my family who I knew that if they are diagnosed as being mildly chronically anemic then their future generations might be at risk This was the driving force behind why I became involved in genealogy or are specifically Ashkenazi Jews related to Italians Ashkenazi Jews are not related to Italians It is just that beta thalassemia was called Mediterranean anemia because of the frequency of carriers in  Greek The trait is known to have some protection against malaria now is the time to find and warn members of my family because the records in Poland that had been microfilmed by the Mormons didn’t go far enough So I was on the phone calling people with my family name all over the world So I ended up going to Poland and indexing all the records for my town I went back to Poland and presented the printout of the database to the director of the Polish State Archives the Polish State Archives did not have one computer and they had never seen a computerized database of their records You have to know my business career to know that when somebody opens up the door There was recently a tribute to me for my 90th birthday “Stanley would never take no for an answer but I grew up with two Yiddish-speaking parents both born in North America — my mother in New York my father in Montreal — and their first language was Yiddish So when they didn’t want the kinder to understand they spoke Yiddish But we picked up ah bissel here and ah bissel there let’s start small and see what happens.” So what did I do I picked the next town over where I knew from my research that I had relatives in Wyszków (pronounced in Yiddish as Vishkova) I signed a 10-year agreement with the Polish State Archives we’ve got close to 7 million records in our database with 6.5 million searchable online I’ll give you an example that will speak to you particularly and in order to get married in the synagogue the rabbi says I have to prove that my mother was Jewish.” She was an assimilated lady in Paris marrying an Orthodox man She said she needed her mother’s birth record We were able to provide it like that (snaps his fingers) That record is not online because we’ve done massive scanning and indexing of records that we can’t put online because they are not funded Then you have to make a qualifying contribution to help us pay for the work that we’ve already done The answer is that the only way we can create a list of surnames of families that lived in that town is by doing the work in advance the records up to 1903 are on our website but they’re not fully extracted — it only gives the name of the boy or the girl but it doesn’t have the mother and father.” But we’ve already spent $8,000 adding the mothers and fathers we’ll send you a file with all this information The records in Poland from 1868 to 1915 are in Russian We can’t use Russians to work on those records because Russians don’t know the Polish spelling They will write Goldstein instead of Goldsztejn Another reason is they don’t know Polish geography They don’t know the way you spell Działoszyce (pronounced dgalo-sheetsa) So that’s why we need to pay Polish people who know Russian and who’ve become experts These are contractors; we pay them between 40 and 50 cents per line of information — or a birth and a death So there are two lines and it costs 80 cents to a dollar per name And that motto is that every record counts I got an email from a man by the name of Harvey “My family came from the same town as yours you’re the town leader.” I’ve basically retained management over the records for my town and the nearby towns And I work with a group of colleagues who share the same roots “I need my mother’s birth record and my grandparents’ marriage record to apply for a Polish passport I’m very worried about what’s happening in the United States he ran for the political office in his area and death — and we have the house-by-house census records I found your grandparents’ birth records in my town My grandfather was born in Ostrów Mazowiecka But Domb is an adjectival name meaning oak; it’s like Smith Researching my family has been a brick wall for me Wysków is halfway between Warsaw and Ostrów Mazowiecka My grandfather’s mother had a sister who lived there but Stanley was able to add another generation of ancestors of mine “My grandparents were in Warsaw when they got married Because none of the records from Warsaw survived after 1918 but they may still have been permanent residents in Ostrów Mazowiecka And Polish law says that you could live someplace but still be a permanent resident of another place You could get your permanent residence changed There are two sets of books of residents in Ostrów Mazowiecka So I looked at the first set — I don’t want to divert but we were the first ones ever to index these books The head of the Polish State Archives said in 2000 There’s no separate page with them being married “I pulled a rabbit out of a hat.” All we had was the index to these books; we were not allowed to scan them because there were still many records covered by Polish privacy laws —births less than 100-years old But the archives allowed us to sit there with a team of five people and to write out the index and asked him to call the director of the Pulltusk Archives — that’s where the books are – and ask to take a photograph with his phone His mother and his grandparents had moved back from Warsaw to Ostrów Mazowiecka in 1932 It showed that they were married in Warsaw and it showed that his mother was born in Warsaw and her date of birth This replaced the vital records that he needed to get a Polish passport So I introduced him to an expert in Melbourne Robert Lebowitz in New York has been volunteering for an organization that is giving face to the fallen — the men and women who died in Israel’s war of 1948 All they have is the name of the person; they don’t know who the father is and they want to put on the matzeivah “ben who” or “bas who.” Robert came to JRI-Poland about two months ago and said that he is also helping people who were in Polish ghettos get restitution from the Polish government “We have not been able to find any information on where this 99-year-old woman was in a ghetto.” I provided it like that (snaps his fingers) This is a database that’s not on the Internet and only two copies of that database exist if you start adding up these mitzvos that we are able to do with our data aside from the fact of somebody like yourself saying I’m going to learn my ancestry.” So you’re a witness We began the interview discussing how the field of genealogy has exploded in the past couple of years Do you see a greater interest over the past year or two You have to understand the different reasons why during the pandemic it was something that enabled people to fill their time The other thing is the fact that the big aggregators realized that this was a business and that they could make money by scanning and providing records It is important for Mormons to trace their ancestry since they believe that they take their ancestors to heaven with them so you’ll have to find out who your ancestors were That was a key factor that opened up the door for widespread genealogical research What we see in business is that everything is incremental there was this meshugene Stanley Diamond in Montreal who had a reason to create a database We were the first indexing project to record Jewish records of Eastern Europe not everybody is interested in their family history We always wanted to be a detective when we were kids And this is a way of living out your dream of being a detective because you’re constantly putting clues together to come up with answers and to come up with alternative ways of searching Another very important reason is a spark — a photograph Or there is an old letter that somebody finds as in the case of Amy Degan in Massachusetts She and my daughter arrived at my house 15 years ago I have seven postcards that were written from Bialystok to my family at the start of the war The translated the postcards were like magic — she found relatives in Australia And we had the data from Bialystok to be able to help her create a family tree What was even more remarkable is that Amy’s husband is a landscape contractor in Massachusetts but something like 10 years ago there was a massive snowstorm in Massachusetts The snow was piled a mile high and it kept on coming for days When you’re a landscape contractor and you charge by the load he likely made more money in one year than he normally made in five He and his wife used the opportunity to go to Bialystok They now go every year and do this mitzvah of keeping up the Bialystok cemetery and then it explodes into something so much more Just like it started with me finding out that I’m anemic and bingo and it starts for many people in many different ways there’s a whole pile of letters that I inherited from my mother that are written in Polish; I don’t know what they are.” They may also come across records in their mother’s safety deposit box The kesubah that I have for my parents is the only place that I’ve seen showing that my grandfather Sholem had a middle name Yitzchok; it’s not even on his matzeivah “Every record counts.” Every record is a piece of your family history So putting all these records together helps you figure stuff out These are all the challenges that come to a genealogist’s desk “Genealogy is the most fun you can have sitting down.” She’s a very funny lady Another reason why we do genealogy is that we make new friends and acquaintances I traveled around the world on business to 45 or 50 different countries but making friends with people is much more meaningful they are our volunteers and supporters around the world and others you would prefer not to communicate with again But it’s all part of this genealogical experience there’s this defining urge to know who was my family This is particularly true of children of survivors whose parents would not say anything Because they knew the moment they started talking about their fathers and mothers and siblings but I haven’t slept at night thinking of what’s going on in Israel now Can you imagine if you were in a camp and you survived four years in Auschwitz and you saw all these people dying How it gets into your head and you thank G-d when you’re able to forget about it and then you get reminded because your granddaughter innocently says These are all part of the genealogical equation What makes a good leader for JRI-Poland is somebody who is even more passionate than the casual researcher; who spends the time to learn about the records Jews have a unique source of information — the matzeivah It’s how I made a major breakthrough at the Waldheim cemetery in Chicago These are the kinds of sources that make Jewish genealogy different particularly here in Montreal where we got the mohel records from Rabbi Colton such as school records and army draft records There are a variety of records that helped to create the genealogical research picture you have to ask questions to the right people I want to ask you another question but this might be a different field than yours but a lot of people are fascinated by ancient genealogy “I am descended from Rashi or the Maharal.” I assume that’s a totally different field than what you deal with It starts in one place and it just keeps going One of the topics I didn’t mention is the nachas you get from meeting relatives — second cousins fourth cousins — that you never knew and bonding with them I’ve got a second cousin in New Jersey whom I never knew existed My grandfather was 30 years older than his younger sister He comes up to Montreal at the drop of a hat with his wife and his kids Another thing that I think is very important: Jews like to talk to Jews and I was driving with my distributor’s salesman whom I had only met that day my children are married and my wife is out of town.” Where is she we get a certain level of joy in making connections with people that are much more meaningful counting towards Shavuos and striving each day to refine ourselves   Most newly inaugurated presidents are judged by their ability to start accomplishing the main goals upon which they campaigned for office within their first   It was pretty quiet in Eretz Yisroel these past two weeks   From Sunny to Overcast… and Back Again After a while It starts with a creeping sense of malaise   Remembering the Fallen Soldiers It happens every year: News photographers and cameraman stake out a few chareidi population centers on Yom Hazikaron   We are rarely moved by a halachic teshuvah Yated Neeman was founded in 1987 as an independent Orthodox Jewish weekly newspaper people have been turning to the Yated for responsible More than an interesting and enlightening read the Yated is part of the daily life of the community Read More >> Breaking news for everyone's consumption Meat from a Polish slaughterhouse suspected of selling products from sick animals has been sent to at least 13 European countries The abattoir in Kalinowo near the town of Ostrów Mazowiecka was secretly filmed slaughtering sick cows by Polish broadcaster TVN. It showed slaughter was carried out at night to avoid official veterinary supervision The meat was labeled as inspected by a veterinarian before being sold to meat processing plants and companies in different countries The National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA) in Romania named the Polish company responsible as Elkopol The implicated Elkopol is headquartered in Kalinowo with approval number 14160202 and is not related to Elkopol Sp Poland notified EU countries through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) that beef from the slaughterhouse has been transported to a Polish meat cutting plant and then exported to 11 EU countries Polish officials said all activities of the implicated slaughterhouse have been stopped and meat from the slaughterhouse for which no post-mortem inspection was documented has been subject to withdrawal The General Veterinary Inspectorate in Poland said that the TVN broadcast presented a “gross violation” of animal protection law leading to deliberate suffering of farm animals with particular cruelty The European Commission said dragging animals that are unable to walk as described in the Polish filming is forbidden by EU legislation on the protection of animals at slaughterhouses The agency added all meat destined for human consumption for which there is no full assurance of compliance with EU rules must be taken immediately off the market especially when there is no certainty that it does not pose animal health or public health risk Before being slaughtered all animals must undergo an ante-mortem inspection (investigation of the live animal) in the presence of the official veterinarian Animals must also have a post-mortem inspection (inspection of the carcass) by or under the responsibility of the official veterinarian said inspectors in his team would be in Poland from Monday to assess the situation on the ground “The priority is to trace and withdraw from the market all the products originated from this slaughterhouse I call on the member states affected to take swift action,” he said “At the same time I urge the Polish authorities to finalize as a matter of urgency their investigations taking all the necessary measures to ensure the respect of the EU legislation including effective rapid and dissuasive penalties against the perpetrators of such a criminal behavior that could pose risk to public health and portrays an unacceptable treatment of animals.” The Polish Beef Association made a statement saying cases of this type should be stigmatized and prosecuted as it is in everyone’s best interests It added the footage was an isolated incident and not the principle of the Polish beef production sector The French Ministry of Agriculture reported almost 800 kilograms of meat from Poland had been found in nine companies with 500 kilograms already recovered Foodwatch France said the scandal shows once again that the prevention and traceability of food is insufficient in European countries even though regulations make it an obligation The consumer group called for transparency on the manufacturers and brands involved in marketing the meat and information on what controls had been carried out and measures are taken Lithuanian authorities issued a warning concerning more than 80 kilograms of potentially unsafe Polish beef An investigation by the State Food and Veterinary Service (VMVT) found two Lithuanian companies had purchased beef from a meat processing company called Zaklad mięsny in Poland The firms affected in Lithuania are UAB Bidfood Lietuva and AB Krekenavos agrofirma Inspections at these establishments established that beef was still stored in the warehouses of the companies and not distributed onto the Lithuanian market Businesses were ordered to destroy the meat About 250 kilograms of meat from the Polish slaughterhouse was sold to four smaller companies in different parts of Sweden the state inspector at Livsmedelsverket (National Food Agency) said based on current information the Polish company sold meat from sick animals “It is a serious violation of food law and completely unacceptable Nothing indicates that the Swedish companies that bought meat from the Polish company have done something wrong We do not currently have any suspicions about other Polish meat,” she added bought the meat in Sweden are Stockholm World AB All meat has been collected and just under 100 kilograms already consumed Polish authorities said about 250 kilograms of illegally slaughtered meat was exported to Finland based on monitoring data of the Polish and Finnish authorities no beef was imported directly to Finland from the slaughterhouse Ruokavirasto (Finnish Food Authority) is investigating whether or not meat that was slaughtered illegally has been sold in Finland or is still in stock (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.) 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