Links Index

General Topics

• General Information
• Search JewishGen
• Glossaries and Dictionaries
• Tools
• Searchable Databases
• Rabbinic Works
• Internet Discussion and Information Lists
• Genetics
• Maps and Atlases
• History
• Submit a Link

General Information

• JewishGen FAQ, by Warren Blatt
• Jewish Virtual Library: extensive site on a wide variety of subjects.
• JewishEncyclopedia.com: features the unedited contents of the original Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906). See also: Review of JewishEncyclopedia.com: Tips on how to search and navigate the site are included in the review.
• Judaism 101: an online encyclopedia of Judaism

Search JewishGen

• Search the JewishGen Web Site
• The JewishGen Discussion Group Message Archives - 1993-present
• The JewishGen SIG Lists Message Archives - 1998-present, including all messages posted to our Rav-SIG discussion group mailing list

Glossaries and Dictionaries

• Rav-SIG Glossary
• Glossary, from Chassidus 
• A Glossary of Basic Jewish Terms and Concepts
• Glossary of Jewish Terminology
• A Jewish Glossary/Dictionary with Thousands of English, Hebrew, and Yiddish Words
• Beginner's Yiddish Dictionary
• Glossary, from the Jewish Virtual Library
• Dictionary of Key Words and Phrases, a Yiddish/Hebrew refresher course (JewishGen Infofile); includes: Common Words & Brief Expressions, Important Acronyms, Several Important Religious Occasions, Some Basic Religious Texts, and A Sample of Other Significant Expressions.

Tools

• JewishGen - ViewMate: JewishGen participants seeking commentary or problem solving advice from others, are encouraged to use ViewMate for the posting of Jewish genealogy-related graphics. Here you can post:
  • Photos for identification of people, clothing, buildings, scenes, objects, artifacts, etc.
  • Letters, documents, book pages, maps, etc. for analysis or translation.
• Language Translation:
  • E-transcriptum: free translation service for texts related to genealogy
  • Alta Vista - World Translate
  • Google Language Tools
• Hebrew Tombstones
  • Reading Hebrew Tombstones (a JewishGen Infofile)
  • Abbreviations and Terms Found on Tombstones in Poland
• Hebrew Calendar and Date Conversion:
  • JewishGen Calculator, including Hebrew Calendar Conversion Tool and Jewish Holiday and Festival Calendar
  • Aish Luach - free downloadable Hebrew date conversion program
  • Convert dates from civil (Gregorian) to Hebrew, and vice versa: click here; with an option to display calendars and holidays: click here
• Hebrew Language
  • The Hebrew Alphabet: Letters, Vowels, Styles, Numerical Values, and Fonts
  • Hebrew and Yiddish transliteration tables
  • Hebrew Abbreviations
  • Hebrew language resources (Columbia University Library)
• Yiddish Language
  • The Yiddish Alphabet: transliteration chart with audio segments
  • Hebrew and Yiddish transliteration tables
  • Yiddish, from the YIVO web site.
  • Yiddish language resources (Columbia University Library)
• Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) Language
  • Ladino Folk Dictionary

Databases

• JewishGen Databases
  • The JewishGen Discussion Group Message Archives: 1993-present
  • The JewishGen SIG Lists Message Archives: 1998-present, including all messages posted to our discussion group mailing list
  • JewishGen ShtetlSeeker: locate your ancestral town
  • Search Jewish Records in the Family History Center (LDS) Catalog
  • Prenumeranten Lists (Subscriber or Pre-Publication Lists for Rabbinic books from 1835 to 1913) for almost every Lithuanian shtetl are included in the searchable All Lithuania Database. For an explanation of abbreviations found in these Prenumeranten Lists, click here.
  • Jewish Religious Personnel in the Russian Empire, 1853-1854
  • JewishGen's American Jewish Year Book database: Cumulative Index of Obituaries: Names Of Over 3000 Notable Jews Who Died Between 1948 and 1998. See the searchable database that includes notable rabbis and cantors officiating in the United States. http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/USA/ajybweb.htm
  • JewishGen Yizkor Book Necrology Database: Names of the Holocaust martyrs may be searched by surname or other terms. (To search for all rabbis in the database: Text: enter term "rabbi" in the search box; Type: select "Global Text Search" in the drop-down menu).
  • The following have global text search capability (enter term "rabbi"): http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Belarus http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Latvia http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/all.htm http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Israel/group84.htm (U.S. Department of State Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa Consular Post Records), http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/SAfrica/sayb.htm (The South African Jewish Year Book Database)
• Alexander Beider's A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire, including origins and geographical locations, online at Ancestry.com in the "Reference and Finding Aids" database; initial "R" following the surname indicates rabbinic lineage.
• Avotaynu Consolidated Jewish Surname Index
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum (enter term “rabbi” in the search box).
• Family Search - LDS (Mormons) web site

Internet Discussion and Information Lists

• JewishGen Discussion Group
• JewishGen Special Interest Groups (SIGs) Mailing Lists
• News Groups, Discussion and Mailing Lists on a wide variety of subjects, including Jewish history, ancient texts and languages, and the Holocaust.

Rabbinic Works  

• Judaica Archival Project Catalog
• Bar Ilan University Responsa Project
• Incunabula, Hebraica & Judaica, from the National Library of Canada
• HebrewBooks.org: Many American Rabbis wrote seforim (Hebrew books) in the early part of the 20th century. More than 700 entire seforim, including hakdomos (introductions), are available to view and print online.
• See also: How to Locate Rabbinic Information Sources in Libraries and Archives

Genetics

• Genealogy by Genetics, JewishGen
  • Subscribe to the Genealogy by Genetics mailing list
  • Family Tree DNA home page
• Genetics and Genealogy: an archive of recent scientific research
• Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests, Nature, January 2, 1997
• Tracing the Cohanim, PBS
• The Cohanim/DNA Connection: The fascinating story of how DNA studies confirm an ancient biblical tradition
• The Cohen-Levi Family Heritage
• Russian Jewish Genetics: A collection of abstracts and reviews of books, articles, and genetic studies

Maps and Atlases

• Historical Maps and Atlases
• JewishGen ShtetlSeeker - locate your ancestral town in Central and Eastern Europe
• Global Gazetteer: a directory of 2,880,532 of the world's cities and towns, sorted by country and linked to a map for each town -

History

• Timeline of Significant Events In Jewish And World History: The Second Destruction, 68 CE, Through 1994 CE (3828-5755)
• The Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, an extensive site on Jewish history with links to other useful sites; includes:
  • Second Temple and Talmudic Era
  • Medieval Jewish Scholars
  • Famous Rabbis
• Crash Course in Jewish History, from Aish.com
• Jewish History Timeline
• The History of the Jewish People, an online book by Eli Birnbaum
• Post-Talmudic Period: Geonim, Rishonim, Acharonim, Code of Jewish Law, Responsa
• Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Jewish Life
• The Cohen-Levi Family Heritage
• Jewish Virtual Library: extensive site on a wide variety of subjects
• Academic Jewish Studies Internet Directory
• American Jewish Historical Society

Submit a Link

We are constantly searching for new and relevant links and resources which we can post on this page. If you can make this task that much easier by suggesting a link, it would be very much appreciated. Please submit the following information to George Farkas. All sites must relate to some aspect of rabbinic genealogy or research.

• Page title and URL.
• Brief description.
• Choose a category from this page or suggest a new category.

Rav-SIG is not responsible for the content of linked pages.