About the Talk
Join this expert panel for an American perspective of genealogy collections held at NYC's Center for Jewish History. Focusing on identifying Jews in America, learn how to navigate materials online, offline, and held elsewhere such as on Ancestry.com and JewishGen.org. The American Jewish Historical Society will be featured, with special collections held at YIVO, Leo Baeck, and the American Sephardi Federation introduced, demonstrated, and explained.
About the Speakers
Ellen Kowitt is JewishGen USA Research Division Director; Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Jewish Task Force Chair; University of Denver OLLI instructor; and author for Family Tree Magazine, Avotaynu, and recently published client book, David Crystal: An American Family History. She has utilized JewishGen and served in a variety of volunteer capacities since 1994.
Moriah Amit is the Senior Genealogy Librarian at the Center for Jewish History in New York. For over a decade, Moriah has provided on-site and remote guidance to thousands of family history researchers of all ages, abilities, and levels of experience, Jewish and non-Jewish. She coordinates the Center's "Family History Today" monthly series of genealogy-themed public programs and is one of the co-hosts of “Genealogy Coffee Break,” the Center's popular tutorial video series on Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. In addition, Moriah is the creator and manager of the New York Historical Synagogues Map (synagoguemap.cjh.org), a free online tool for Jewish genealogy, which was awarded a grant from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies in 2019. She earned a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute.
Melanie Meyers is the Deputy Director of the American Jewish Historical Society, and Chair of Collections and Engagement. She has served as an adjunct lecturer at The Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University, where she has taught a variety of classes for the special collections/rare books specialization, including “History of the Book” and “Reference and Instruction in Special Collections.” She has served as a curator on multiple exhibitions, including “Nourishing Traditions: Jewish Cookbooks and the Stories They Tell,” and “Jews in Space: Members of the Tribe in Orbit.” She has worked with special collections in a variety of settings, including private, non-profit, and academic institutions, and has served on outside evaluation teams for other repositories.
J.D. Arden is a reference and genealogy librarian at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. He graduated from Brandeis University and received a master’s degree in library and information science from Pratt Institute.