Czernowitzers!
I join the others in sending condolences on the passing of Berti Glaubach.
As the original and irreplaceable Czernowitzers depart, the rest of us
will have ever more need of precious research resources. Here is a new
one, which includes material in multiple languages, some from fairly
obscure sources. I have only begun to explore it, but I looked at
Czernowitz and Sadagura as well as some tiny locales. Among other
things, you can find Gold's history of the Jews of Bukovina in the
original German to read online or download. Speaking of languages,
Google translate can handle images, so that may be all you need when
dealing with a short passage not in English. And note that, at the
bottom of this page, there are some links to resources for crowdsourced
help with identification of photographs or translations of short amounts
of genealogical information.
Jim
https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/about
Project Zikaron, a project of *Touro University Libraries (New York)*
<https://www.tourolib.org/>, aims to expand the body of world knowledge
by making thousands of books, articles, manuscripts, and documents
accessible, many of which are rare and unique, in addition to serving as
an information portal for the study of the local history of thousands of
Jewish communities worldwide, with a particular focus on those destroyed
in Europe under Nazi aggression. Project Zikaron (/zikaron/ means
“memory” in Hebrew) is making these materials easily accessible for the
first time, with the goal of reviving the memory of these communities
and the people who inhabited them. Most of the material is in Hebrew,
Yiddish, English, German, French, and Russian, with the collection
spanning more than 30 languages in total. Project Zikaron opened to the
public in November 2026.
Our historical resources are categorized by the current name of each
town. Use the Town Search
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/items/search> feature to search for
the current, former, or Yiddish name of a city, town, or village to
access the full-text content. For the first time, thousands of books,
articles, and documents have been indexed by town name to facilitate
easy access, thereby eliminating the need to search full-text for
alternative town names or to compensate for OCR errors.
Project Zikaron lists the current name first, followed by former or
Yiddish names in parentheses, followed by the current country in which
it is located. To identify the most authentic Yiddish names, we have
consulted Yiddishland <https://yivo.org/Yiddishland>, Berel Kagan’s
/Sefer ha-Prenumerantn/ <https://www.hebrewbooks.org/46561>, and other
sources. Town names highlighted in yellow indicate that it is not
certain that the correct locality was identified, as illustrated here
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/paneth1886>. When a town cannot be
identified, which is sometimes due to there being more than one town by
that name in the region, it does not have its own webpage, as is the
case with Tshipilivits here
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/kitover1871>. In general, cities,
towns, and villages are listed, although many countries and some regions
are also included, particularly when a Yizkor book is dedicated to that
area. The number appearing to the left of each current town name
represents the number of resources available for that town, excluding
external links.
Our interactive *map*
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/geolocation/map/browse>*,* which links
directly to full-text content, is also the first of its kind. Using this
map, users can enhance their research by easily navigating to materials
relating to nearby localities. For a *listing of entries that are not
cities, towns, or villages*, click here
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/entries>.
We are proud to include a growing number of unpublished memoirs
transcribed from the original manuscripts: the third volume of Avraham
Shlomoh Melamed’s <https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/melamed_v1-3> Hebrew
memoirs of life in the Crimea from 1914 until 1920; the second volume of
Rabbi Shimen Eisenberg’s <https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/eisenberg_v2>
Yiddish memoirs of the horrors of Jewish life in Belarus after World War
I (see our English-language introduction); the autobiography of
Yitskhok Tzvi Frank <https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/frank1964>, a
Gerer Hasid who immigrated to America in 1904; a hand-drawn map and
description <https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/aberson1988> of Veisiejai,
Lithuania in 1920, as recollected by Ruth Aberson; and Raya Kagan
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/kaganmezherich>’s reminiscences of her
childhood in a Jewish agricultural colony in Ukraine in the early 1900s.
*CATEGORIES*:
The historical materials in Project Zikaron are divided into the
following categories:
*/Pinkasim/*: Project Zikaron is the first website to provide digital
images, summaries, and transcriptions of /pinkasim/ (Jewish communal
registers). Once maintained by every Jewish community, the relatively
few surviving /pinkasim/ (/pinkas/ in the singular) are among the few
surviving internal Jewish documents to describe daily Jewish life.
Digitized images of dozens of /pinkasim /from the 18th and 19th
centuries were obtained through a cooperative agreement between the
Russian National Library and Touro College & University System’s Project
Zikaron. (Published /pinkasim/ are listed under Communal Histories.)
*Autobiographies*: Project Zikaron has digitized and indexed thousands
of Jewish autobiographies and memoirs—a largely overlooked source of
some of the richest information about Jewish communities—some of which
consist of hundreds of pages. These accounts are often the only
extensive descriptions of these communities, such as Kalman Marmor’s
memoirs <https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/marmor/151>, in which he
briefly describes most of the 100 Jewish families of his native /shtetl/
of Meyshegole (now Maišiagala), Lithuania. We have indexed the primary
localities discussed, with particular emphasis on smaller communities.
Included is a listing of autobiographies arranged alphabetically by the
authors’ surnames. Only Jewish autobiographies that discuss Jewish life
have been included.
*Yizkor Books*: Yizkor books memorialize Jewish communities destroyed
during the Holocaust. Project Zikaron has digitized and made fully
searchable over 1,250 Yizkor books, including over 150 Yizkor journals,
and has indexed over 4,000 localities mentioned in them. Yizkor journals
primarily cover Bialystok
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/archival-records/bialystok>, Krements
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/archival-records/kremenets>, and
Zhelekhov <https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/archival-records/zelechow>.
Included are approximately 20 Yizkor books
<https://www.zikaron.tourolib.org/zhitomir> published during the
interwar period, which primarily memorialize Jewish communities
devastated during the Russian Civil War (1917–1921). Also included are
publications of /landsmanshaftn/ (hometown societies), primarily
published in the United States, and memorial books published in Germany,
often by municipal archives, that list or provide short biographies of
former Jewish residents.
*Cemeteries*: Includes books and articles about specific Jewish
cemeteries. Many of these resources document tombstone inscriptions,
either throughout the entire cemetery or only for the rabbis and
prominent community members buried there. Many of these cemeteries were
documented before World War II and were later destroyed during the
Holocaust. This category also includes Hevrah Kadishah
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevra_kadisha> (Jewish burial society)
ledgers that have been transcribed and published.
*/Prenumerantn/**(Pre-Subscription Lists)*: Jewish authors of the past
few hundred years, especially writers on rabbinic subjects, often
traveled to numerous communities to sell advance copies of their works
to raise the necessary funds for publication. These advance
subscribers—/prenumerantn/ in Yiddish—were often acknowledged by having
their names printed in the book, and their names were usually organized
by locality. (The “Search Inside” feature searches only the
/prenumerantn/ lists, not the entire book.)
*Communal Histories*: This category consists of local histories,
travelogues, folklore research, musical scores, and other published
works that include information about Jewish communities, their rabbis,
and prominent citizens.
*OTHER FEATURES:*
*External Internet Resources*: The bottom of each town page often
contains links to relevant internet resources, arranged by category,
e.g., Jewish History, General History, etc.
*Recent Updates tab*: Lists materials added within the past 30 days.
*TRANSLATION ASSISTANCE:***
**
For assistance in translating short passages relating to genealogy, try
posting your questions on one of the following websites:
* Tracing the Tribe - Jewish Genealogy
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/20364215746> on Facebook
* JewishGen’s ViewMate <https://www.jewishgen.org/ViewMate/>
* Genealogical Translations
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/GenealogicalTranslations/> on Facebook
To find a translator for Yiddish or Hebrew material, see:
https://www.yivo.org/Translators-List
*ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS*
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Conference on Jewish
Material Claims Against Germany, supported by the German Federal
Ministry of Finance.
--
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