"Shimon Peres, the former Israeli prime minister, president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has died at the age of 93, according to media reports in Israel.

The Israeli statesman suffered a major stroke two weeks ago and died in hospital in Tel Aviv early on Wednesday."

R.I.P. Gone, but not forgotten.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/28/israels-former-president-shimon-peres-dies-after-suffering-strok/

The founding generation of Israel is almost all gone

Amen to this.

"Shimon Peres, former President and Prime Minister of Israel was a true visionary for peace and a leader full of optimism and dreams. Israel has lost a founding father."

~ John Sekulow

Very cool. Both rised to the top in their respective fields.

He served Israel well...and his continuing contributions as a vital link between the extremes was enormously important.

I wish him all the best.

Blessed are the peacemakers. My deepest sympathies for his family, the people of Israel, and those of us who benefitted from his work.

A good article from NBC, highlighting world leaders comments of him post-humously,

"Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, chose to highlight what he characterized as Peres' gift for looking beyond the passing issues of the day, which he said was apparent in a meeting with Hier, filmmaker Jeffery Katzenberg and Jerry Seinfeld over Hanukkah in 2007.

Hier said Wednesday morning that during the meeting, Peres said of Israel: "Gentlemen, not all miracles are in the Bible. You are visiting Israel. The whole country is a miracle! We have no oil, no water, but look at what Israel has accomplished."

Marvin Nathan, and Jonathan Greenblatt, national chairman and chief executive, respectively, of the Anti-Defamation League, noted Peres' military and political achievements in a joint statement. But they also stressed his engagement with society at large, right up until his death.

"At an age when all of his contemporaries had entered retirement, along with taking up skydiving, Peres worked to promote social innovation and new advanced technologies for international social change and the greater good," they said.

In his statement, Clinton called Peres "a genius with a big heart."

"His critics called him a dreamer. That he was — a lucid, eloquent dreamer until the very end," Clinton said. "Thank goodness. Let those of us who loved him and love his nation keep his dream alive."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/world-pauses-remember-shimon-peres-face-israel-n655826

I wish that people will finally realise or admit that Israel is one of our best allies and would acknowledge and respect her more.

Same here.

On an up note, I learned this morning that Shimon and I share the same birthday. How cool is that?!

Now when I celebrate my birthday it will give me pause to remember his.

In Judaism that's called a Yahrzeit. Remembering and honoring our loved ones on anniversaries, dates of birth, and anniversaries of their passing.

:))

I remember hearing my father talk when I was a little girl how Israel had the best military in the world and could wipe out the whole Middle East if she was "allowed "to defend herself.
Which form of Judaism is it where it's a tradition to name a child after a living relative, and which one is the opposite?

Not sure as to the naming tradition, other than it is very common for Jewish families to have namesakes they name their children after. Especially grandparents, for example. Or favorite aunts/uncles etc.

Some traditions in America may include an American name for a child; with a Hebrew name (of an ancestor perhaps,) for their middle name.

When my parents named me they inadvertently named me this way, without realizing that they had. My middle name was after my Jewish grandmother, as I was her firstborn granddaughter. I didn't learn about the Jewish naming tradition until the past few years - and it delighted me to discover my parents named me that by default. :)) (Come to think of it, my mom's middle name was after her Jewish great grand.)

When my daughter was born I adopted the tradition of my parents (before I knew we were fully Jewish,) of giving my daughter a Hebrew name from the bible for her middle name, similar to my own. :))

When an American Jew decides to make immigration to Israel they are allowed to choose a Hebrew name that they'll use once established in Israel. They may keep their legal name from here, and be legally known by their other name of choice after emigrating. If I were to immigrate I'd have dual citizenship. At this juncture in my life, I don't anticipate I'll be doing that. Though one of my children has.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2016 02:45PM by Amyjo.

I looked it up because it bothers me when somethings at the tip of my tongue and I can't remember it. Ashkenazi Jews don't name a baby after a living relative or even if an other living relative has the same name.Sephahardic Jews do, in fact it's considered an honour, that's what I was thinking of, so it's not one of the forms of Judaism, but the 2 main types of Jews in Europe
My ancestry. Com has me as 6% Ashkenazi, so I looked it up a few weeks ago

I don't find that necessarily true. Although I haven't taken any surveys. Where I worship is mostly Ashkenazi Jews, and they don't seem to have qualms about naming their babies after living or deceased relatives. Now that you raised the subject though, I will ask where I worship this coming weekend. Because enquiring minds need to know these things! ;o)

Am not too familiar with the Sephardic traditions either. When my daughter was in France for an academic year she worshiped at a mostly Sephardic synagogue. Though their ways may be different somewhat from Spain where they originated? Who knows?

Many of the French Jews are fleeing France for Israel, due to rising anti-Semitism in Europe. France has been 3rd in the world, following Israel and the US for housing Jews. Those numbers are dwindling because of the threat of terrorism targeting them specifically.

On my Jewish family tree the babies names were constantly overlapping each other. They were repeated often throughout 17th, 18th, and 19th century German Jewry - all Ashkenazi. So again, I'll check where I worship. Many there are from European ancestry or Russian. They will be able to tell me for sure.

One of the women where I worship was in the same concentration camp as Anne Frank. They would've been the same age, had Anne lived.

Ancestry could tell from your DNA sample you have 6% Ashkenazi? Wow, that's awesome. I need to get my DNA done. Have been putting it off because there's always something more pressing I need to take care of it seems. :))

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Am not too familiar with the Sephardic traditions
> either. When my daughter was in France for an
> academic year she worshiped at a mostly Sephardic
> synagogue. Though their ways may be different
> somewhat from Spain where they originated? Who
> knows?

Where I live, I would estimate that about a quarter of the total Jewish congregations are considered Sephardi (as versus Ashkenazi), though here---in the United States---Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have now, for practical reasons, kind of coalesced into what used to be more definitively considered "Sephardi" (people whose ancestors once lived in southern Spain or in Portugal, most especially during the Middle Ages).

(Mizrahi Jews are, in the large picture, those whose families, and maybe themselves, came from countries or cultures which are predominately Muslim: Yemen, Syria, etc.)

Today, there is often a great deal of blurring of historical and cultural lines between "Sephardi" and "Mizrahi" because of historical, and current global, realities...but if there is a choice between the two, people usually choose what they most identify with (or: they choose whichever is their preferred synagogue!! ;) ).

There's not THAT much difference between the two in the essentials...mostly it is about which Jewish vernacular language was the language of (for example) their grandparents, and which dishes are a given person's favorite "Jewish" foods (especially during Jewish holidays of one kind or another), and which lullabies are sung to the infants in that particular family.

Some descendants of my Ashkenazi ancestors (making them my distant cousins,) moved from Germany sometime during the 19th century for Spain.

I found a couple of their descendants, doing a precursory genealogy search several years back now living in Madrid. The Jewish religion was phased out apparently as their ancestors inter-married into the Spanish society. They still retain the ancestral name, but with deep Spanish cultural influences - and no longer practicing Jewish.

One of them is a professor of history in Madrid. And an ambassador for Spain to Israel. That was neat to find out. I was instrumental in introducing her to our other Israeli cousin, who she was able to meet along with her mother on one of her trips to Israel that was work related. Her uncle is an international lawyer in Madrid. He was my initial contact prior to meeting up with her.

I was able to relay to him we had another cousin with same surname who was Jewish, a survivor of the Holocaust, who became an International Lawyer in his post-WWII career, and was one of the trial lawyers @ the Nuremberg trials. He introduced me to his niece the ambassador, because she is their family genealogist and record keeper. :))

As for Sephardic Jews however, they are not. Their German Jewish forefathers assimilated into Spanish society, like many other Jews have done historically into other parts of Europe and elsewhere.

My Ashkenazi great ancestors named their sons after the living fathers ... Several of the sibling sons seemed to have shared the same middle name.

One may have used it as a first name; another as a middle name, and so on. Doing genealogy on that line gets very confusing with so many sharing first names. Max is a common one. So is Suzanne. (I like both those names!)

Rivkah for a Hebrew version of Rebecca. That's pretty too. :)

I just got done reading a few months ago , a couple of books on Anne Frank, one was by Miep Gies. The other by Eva Schloss is on the whole experience at Auschwitz in general.
I've read other books too, of course. There's too many of them to read them all.
What books do any of you recommend?
That'll be sad seeing someone who was in a camp back then. I still can't believe something like that actually happened.
Most of these Nazis got away with what they did too.
On my ancestry.com map, on the Ashkenazic side, it showed Romania, Ukraine, Russia area mainly.
I have 3% middle eastern, which had Syria and that area highlighted, along with Israel, Turkey , Greece again( on the " middle eastern" and Greek side.
I did freak out when I saw the middle eastern, until I saw the footnote that Israel was included( the test isn't THAT precise)

Hockey Rat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just got done reading a few months ago , a
> couple of books on Anne Frank, one was by Miep
> Gies. The other by Eva Schloss is on the whole
> experience at Auschwitz in general.
> I've read other books too, of course. There's
> too many of them to read them all.
> What books do any of you recommend?

The book that will likely change your perception forever, in an entirely factual and sobering way, is:

HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Joseph Goldhagen. (Many used copies are available, starting from US$3.47 (and Free Shipping in the USA) from: www.abebooks.com---you can choose your copy, and the bookseller you order it from, from those which come up in the listing---make certain that the bookseller and you are in the same country. (Postage to "foreign countries" is very expensive now, and this includes Canada vis-à-vis the USA!)

After you read this book, you will be able to understand EVERYTHING--no matter now bizarre any future discoveries might be.

This book is well written, and in a most accessible style, but the information can be dense, so don't think that you will be able to read through this as swiftly as you might read through a novel. You are going to learn what REALLY went on, so take it at a pace which is comfortable for you.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2016 07:17PM by Tevai.

Sounds interesting. Is it very graphic though? I don't want to have nightmares.I still can't watch Schindler's list.
I hate watching these documentaries on TV and they interview Germans who were alive then , the ones who lived next door to one of the camps, and they claim they never knew what was going on.
Yeah right. Didn't they notice new strange smells, thick dark smoke, bus loads of people going by all the time?

One of my cousins by marriage I've found since doing genealogy (started in 2011,) mother was a business partner's of Eva Schloss' when Eva still resided in England post-war.

Eva lives today in Florida, last I checked. My cousin through marriage's mother passed away last year in England. They were antique dealers together, who sold some of their wares through Otto in Switzerland, where he lived post-war.

Cousin via marriage gives talks on the Holocaust where she lives in Hawaii. She remembers Otto Frank coming to her school as a young girl to give a talk to her class (she was ten at the time.) He refused to watch the play of Anne the students put on before he sat down to speak to the students, because he was unable to watch any such plays as they were too emotional for him.

He would give talks like she does today out of a sense of wanting to educate. Not because he considered himself any kind of an extrovert.

One of my third cousins was also very close friends of Otto, and his family in Amsterdam. They moved together in 1933 from Germany to Amsterdam believing they were escaping the Nazis at that time, and that the Netherlands was *safe.* Their families were neighbors and they'd spend Sundays together pre-war.

Following the Holocaust it was my cousin who insisted that Otto publish Anne's diary. He wasn't going to at first, being an intensely private person. My cousin prevailed, believing it was a historical record that needed preserving. Neither man had any idea how successful the book would go on to become.

Out of all the diaries published of war victims it was Anne's book that put a human face on what happened for history.

My cousin was one of the expert witnesses used to authenticate the diary of Anne Frank. I discovered that doing genealogy. Even my Hawaiian cousin or Israeli cousin who keeps the Jewish family records did not know the association between him and the Franks until I shared that. Or that his daughter was a Dutch Resistance fighter along with her brother, who saved their dad from the concentration camps, along with other Jews they were able to save during that era. They just weren't able to save them all, or they would have. Netherlands lost upwards of 80% of its Jewry because of that genocide.

Wow, you're blessed to have a great and proud family history. Yes, Anne's father wanted to keep her diary private, but realised that it'd do more good if people would read it . It'd show everyone what really went on . I can't believe people believing that it didn't happen. Most of them do, but they're just troublemakers who like debating and attention.

Another book I'd recommend to you is called "Ashes in the Wind" by Jacques Presser, Dutch historian.

It's available in English, online through book outlets. He is considered Netherlands leading historian on Dutch Jewry, WWII era.

His wife was murdered in the Holocaust, and he never remarried. My cousin who was a Dutch Resistance fighter, lived with him and his wife pre-war as he and his wife were trying to help her learn the Jewish ways (her dad had inter-married a woman of Christian faith.)

She helped save Jacques like she did her father during the Holocaust. After his wife was rounded up in a police raid (razzia) on her way to buy groceries one day in Amsterdam just because she was Jewish, Jacques never saw her again. He went into deep hiding. He was hidden in a farm house (maybe several throughout the war,) in the countryside outside Amsterdam.

My cousin would smuggle him things from the city he needed to continue his works while in deep hiding.

His masterpiece is Ashes in the Wind; which is why it's translated into English and has survived the decades since his passing. He was a poet not just a historian, who was able to weave the lives of the people he wrote about to make their stories come to life for the reader.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2016 09:26PM by Amyjo.

I really want to get my Ancestry DNA done.

Were you satisfied with your results?

Do you feel it was worth the money spent to learn - and would you recommend Ancestry for DNA testing, or somewhere else?

Yes, I recommend your getting AncestryDNA testing done.

I had mine done and it has opened up surprises seeing matches to relatives I didn't know I had, and finding out that it was not just my own family lines that immigrated to America from Norway and Germany but many other family lines associated with mine, coming to America (and South America as well) at the same time to to the same areas in the USA!

Ancestry.com is well worth the time to build your family tree with. You can build a robust family tree quickly versus having to research manually in the paper archives back in the old days. Hints (little leaves) would show up with additional information for you to evaluate and accept to add to the family tree.

Further note:

Not all records are online for every family line even though massive records are added every day.

My father's paternal male side in Germany has many records still not online. I know where the records went and would have to either travel to Poland to do the research myself or hire a genealogist via Ancestry.com to go there to research.

There are genealogists who live there (in Germany and Poland,) so paying someone to travel there for you would be a waste of your resources.

It would make more sense to hire a local who has easy access to the places you need to visit, and then pay whatever they charge (assuming it does indeed save you more than paying someone else to travel there for you.)

Tried a two-week trial of Ancestry recently and cancelled. Some find what they want and need on there to build their trees with. I found it laborious.

After one week of my trial membership, and after adding the names and information of my immediate ancestors, somehow all that information became deleted and lost and I would've had to start all over again.

It did a terrible job of linking me to older generations. The information it has already there was hard to access for some reason. Maybe it's just me, not sure.

The registrar for Daughters of the American Revolution uses it regularly for her research, and is much more adept and skilled at it than I am. I'm still a novice at this apparently.

There are other genealogical websites that I've found easier to use and navigate. One plugs in my information for me so I don't need to, and it's been correct so far.

Since it's a free membership, I'll probably stick to that (unless I want to upgrade of course.)

It feels like the end of an era. Rest in peace, Shimon Peres.

Here's a really nice tribute and mini-biography of his life in the following article,

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/israel-news/ever-optimistic-pursuer-peace-shimon-peres-dies-93

With some leading dignitaries paying their respects, some of the comments spoken at his service,

"Shimon never saw his dream of peace fulfilled," Obama said. "And yet he did not stop dreaming, and he did not stop working."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who exchanged a rare handshake with Abbas before the ceremony, paid tribute to Peres as "a great man of the world," adding: "Israel grieves for him. The world grieves for him."

Clinton called Peres a "wise champion of our common humanity" and described a meeting where Israeli and Arab children together sang John Lennon's "Imagine."

Clinton said Peres "imagined all the things the rest of us could do. He started life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/obama-clinton-attend-shimon-peres-funeral-jerusalem-n657181

I like how our flags are at half staff , until sunset tonight. It started yesterday. I think it should of been 3 days, but two is better than nothing.
Yes, I really liked my ancestry.com results.
It gives you more of a breakdown in regions than the 123 one( something like that)
I'm thinking of doing the FTDNA one too. A lot of people do both . Sometimes one tells you more than the other for certain things and VV on another subject.
I think Gen2.0 is another.
There are also some Jewish DNA ones.
You can google it and just look at the ones out and see what each one emphasizes on.
We did mine and my husbands. My mom did hers.

Thanks for the info.

I just had to pay membership dues to join DAR after the registrar there did an incredible job of linking my recent ancestors to the distant ones, for proof of relation. That was pretty pricey, and set me back a bit. Plus the tombstone I ordered for my Civil War ancestor this summer set me back a bit as well. Once you get started with this family history business, it takes on a life of its own! ;)

It starts out we need to prove our three nearest generations connecting us to the patriot who fought in the Revolutionary War.

So I did that. The gggrandmother linking to the patriot was the one missing a single death certificate. Boy oh boy. Then we produced her obituary, letter from the state she died in attesting she didn't have a death certificate, where she's buried, a letter from her husband who outlived her stating her burial place. That still wouldn't have been enough without more sufficient proof.

So the registrar has an account w/Ancestry and was able to find the census records matching her family history, then backwards to the patriot. I had no idea so much is involved in joining these groups. The more time that passes the harder it becomes to establish the linkage. She told me that DAR is making it harder to join in recent years, not less so, due to validating restrictions. Eventually there won't be anyone left to join at that rate! :))

23 and Me is supposed to be a good DNA test also. I've compared that one to Ancestry, and they both have pros & cons - the 23 and Me seemed more geared to a narrower result finding than Ancestry does ... not sure still which of the two is better. Will probably go with price at first, and then decide from there.

Some people do several DNA tests. Having not done even one yet, I hope to get the most bang for my buck with the first one. :))