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Search this new list of Jewish family names from Cairo, Alexandria, Baghdad, Damascus, Aleppo and Beirut
(JTA) — In his retirement, Jacob Rosen-Koenigsbuch is passionate about surnames. Specifically, the last names of Jews who were living in the Arab world before the Mizrahi exodus in the middle of the 20th century around the establishment of Israel.
Rosen-Koenigsbuch spends much of his time with his head buried in archival material from bygone communities searching for names. And when he feels that he’s collected a critical mass of names from any particular city — it would be impossible to find them all — he compiles an index. So far, he’s done Cairo, Alexandria, Baghdad, Damascus and Aleppo, and earlier this month, he published his latest, Beirut — which lists nearly 800 surnames, from Abadi to Zilkha.
“I have the time. And I love it. So I don’t mind sitting for five, six hours to dig out a name,” he said.
If you’re assuming the last name Rosen-Koenigsbuch makes him Ashkenazi, you’re not wrong. And if you’re wondering why he decided to spend his retirement as a genealogist focused on other peoples’ heritage, he gets it and he likes to joke about it.
“I connect with a lot of people who see my work through social media and it’s very nice but you probably realize that if a guy called Rosen-Koenigsbuch is asking questions about Egypt, or Beirut, it sounds a bit suspicious,” he said with a long chuckle.
The answer to the question of why he does what he does is that he spent his career as a diplomat for Israel, including a few years as ambassador to Jordan, and after investigating his own Polish roots, he came to realize something: Much of his family perished in the Holocaust, but at least he can learn something about them because the archives in Europe are open. Jews with Middle Eastern roots and a genealogical itch, on the other hand, have only scraps of written material available, like circumcision ledgers and community newspapers.
This distinction in access aside, neat geographic lines don’t neatly separate Jewish identity categories like Mizrahi, Ashkenazi and Sephardic. Rosen-Koenigsbuch has been surprised to learn of the extent of geographic intermixing long before the Israel ingathered the Jewish diaspora.
“For example, I found out that at least 20% of Jews of Cairo and Alexandria were Ashkenazim,” Rosen-Koenigsbuch said. It was a “big, big, beautiful thing,” he said, when he got hold of the document, “Annual Report of the Ashkenazi Community of Cairo 1938.” “It has hundreds of names!” he said.
As another example, the standard story on Baghdadi Jewry is that the community was massive, at one point making up one-third of the metropolis, with roots going back to antiquity when the Jews were exiled from the Holy Land and held captive by a Babylonian Empire. While that narrative is not exactly wrong, successive plagues in the 19th century wiped out much of the city’s population and Baghdadi Jewish families are to a large degree transplants who arrived afterward.
“You could see by the names that people started coming from other places,” Rosen-Koenigsbuch said. “Shirazi, Darshatim, Yazdi — Persian place names — or Kirkuki. Some people came from Georgia. That’s why we see the given name Gorgi. And Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire. So you have families from Thessaloniki.”
When a name appears on Rosen-Koenigsbuch’s list, that means it came from a historical document somewhere. If you’re doing genealogical research, now you’ve got a paper trail, a lead. Rosen-Koenigsbuch makes himself available through his Facebook profile to people who’d like to get or give more information, or make a correction.
“There is a new generation of young Jews all over the world who are trying to figure out where they hail from,” he said. “This searchable index reveals to them that their surname existed also in Aleppo or Damascus or Beirut.”
Sarina Roffé, a leading expert in Sephardic genealogy, called Rosen-Koenigsbuch a “genius.”
“Jacob loves lists and is meticulous about them. I love the data that goes with the lists, names and dates and what they are for,” said Roffé, the founder of the Sephardic Heritage Project and a past board member of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.
Up next for Rosen-Koenigsbuch is an index for Basra. Or maybe Mosul. Or Port Said.
“They all deserve an index,” he said. “The work is never-ending.”
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The post Search this new list of Jewish family names from Cairo, Alexandria, Baghdad, Damascus, Aleppo and Beirut appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove celebrates Passover and remembers Israel’s first vineyards
As we drink our four cups of wine at the Passover seder, many of us will be drinking wine from Israel. We’ll be continuing a tradition which began in 1882 when the first experimental vineyards were planted in Rishon LeZion with the financial and moral support of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a French Zionist, philanthropist […]
The post Treasure Trove celebrates Passover and remembers Israel’s first vineyards appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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250,000 Palestinians have left Rafah since the partial withdrawal of the IDF
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their homes due to the war provoked by Hamas’s terror attacks, shelter in a tent camp, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, December 29, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Shadi Tabatibi
i24 News – Since the partial withdrawal of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from the Gaza Strip, approximately 250,000 Palestinians have relocated from the town of Rafah to other areas further north, particularly between Nuseirat and Khan Younes, south of the Wadi Gaza line.
This mass exodus follows the peak of the military operation in the Gaza Strip when Rafah was home to 1.3 million Palestinians.
Reports from Kan 11 channel indicate that Israel has approved an action plan in Rafah, allegedly in exchange for refraining from a large-scale attack against Iran. However, Biden administration officials have refuted these claims, stating that there has been no discussion of such a deal between Israel and the United States.
In response to the population movement, Israel has announced plans to establish 10,000 tents in the area outside Rafah within the next two weeks. Additionally, an additional 30,000 tents are being acquired for deployment at a later date.
Initially, the IDF intended to distribute leaflets urging residents of Rafah to leave the area this week.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opted to postpone this action to ensure continued American support in potential retaliatory measures against Iran following an attack attributed to the country.
The post 250,000 Palestinians have left Rafah since the partial withdrawal of the IDF first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US House Passes $95 Billion Ukraine, Israel Aid Package, Sends to Senate
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to members of the media at the Capitol building, April 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners.
The legislation now proceeds to the Democratic-majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. U.S. leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.
The Senate is expected to pass the measure next week, sending it to Biden to sign into law.
The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his thanks, saying U.S. lawmakers moved to keep “history on the right track.”
“The vital U.S. aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger,” Zelensky said on X.
It was unclear how quickly the new military funding for Ukraine will be depleted, likely causing calls for further action by Congress.
Biden, who had urged Congress since last year to approve the additional aid to Ukraine, said in a statement: “It comes at a moment of grave urgency, with Israel facing unprecedented attacks from Iran and Ukraine under continued bombardment from Russia.”
The vote on passage of the Ukraine funding was 311-112. But significantly, 112 Republicans opposed the legislation, with only 101 in support.
“Mike Johnson is a lame duck… he’s done,” far-right Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters afterward.
She has been a leading opponent of helping Ukraine in its war against Russia and has taken steps that threaten to remove Johnson from office over this issue. Greene stopped short of doing so on Saturday, however.
During the vote, several lawmakers waved small Ukrainian flags as it became clear that element of the package was headed to passage. Johnson warned lawmakers that was a “violation of decorum.”
Meanwhile, the House’s actions during a rare Saturday session put on display some cracks in what generally is solid support for Israel within Congress. Recent months have seen leftist Democrats express anger with Israel‘s government and its conduct of the war in Gaza.
But Saturday’s vote, in which the Israel aid was passed 366-58, had 37 Democrats and 21 Republicans in opposition.
Passage of the long-awaited legislation was closely watched by U.S. defense contractors, who could be in line for huge contracts to supply equipment for Ukraine and other U.S. partners.
Johnson this week chose to ignore ouster threats by hardline members of his fractious 218-213 majority and push forward the measure that includes Ukraine funding as it struggles to fight off a two-year Russian invasion.
The unusual four-bill package also includes a measure that includes a threat to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and the potential transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine.
Some hardline Republicans voicing strong opposition to further Ukraine aid argued the United States can ill afford it given its rising $34 trillion national debt. They have repeatedly raised the threat of ousting Johnson, who became speaker in October after his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted by party hardliners.
“It’s not the perfect legislation, it’s not the legislation that we would write if Republicans were in charge of both the House, the Senate, and the White House,” Johnson told reporters on Friday. “This is the best possible product that we can get under these circumstances to take care of these really important obligations.”
Representative Bob Good, chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, told reporters on Friday that the bills represent a “slide down into the abyss of greater fiscal crisis and America-last policies that reflect Biden and (Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck) Schumer and (House Democratic leader Hakeem) Jeffries, and don’t reflect the American people.”
But Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who carries huge influence in the party, on April 12 voiced support for Johnson and in a Thursday social media post said Ukraine’s survival is important for the U.S.
The post US House Passes $95 Billion Ukraine, Israel Aid Package, Sends to Senate first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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