And talking of volunteers with facility in Russian, I would like to take this moment to pay our respects to the memory of the late Bonnie Phelps who died just last month at the tender age of 44. Bonnie was a dedicated JRI-Poland volunteer. She worked on the Bialystok Shtetl CO-OP and was a valuable member of Hadassah Lipsius’s quality control team. Because of Bonnie’s expertise in Russian, many people turned to her for help. Through the vital records of Poland, Bonnie and fellow researcher and Lomza Archive Coordinator, José Gutstein discovered they were cousins…a small family within the larger JRI-Poland family. While our loss is small compared to her family’s, we friends of Bonnie grieve too… a part of us is gone. And so, we have chosen to honour Bonnie’s blessed memory with a page on our web site with the warm words of tribute from Bialystok Archive Coordinator Mark Halpern, Bonnie’s cousin José Gutstein, and fellow researcher Diane Freilich.
