Jane Rosen Berenbeim has worked for more than 20 years as a Development Officer for New York City non-profit organizations, including Columbia University, Mount Sinai Medical Center, and at present, the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA). In earlier incarnations, she taught History and managed a financial planning service. She has been researching her family history for the past ten years and served as Fundraising Chair of the 2006 IAJGS Conference.
Linda Cantor, President, a retired teacher for the New York City Board of Education, has been researching her family history for over twenty-five years and has done considerable research on her Lithuanian, Galician and Volhynian roots. She is a former president of JGS of Long Island, a former Board member of IAJGS, and coordinator of several Lithuanian town SIGs. Linda was the registration chair of the 19th Annual Conference on Jewish Genealogy, co-chair of the 26th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, secretary of JGS, and has been a member of JGS for over twenty-five years
Stewart Driller, Treasurer, is an electrical engineer who retired from Con Edison ten years ago, when an interest in New York City history and the Lower East Side raised questions about his family's origins. Since then he has been researching his family in the Lublin area of Poland and northern Galicia. Stew is also a volunteer at the Genealogy Institute and Conservation Lab at the Center for Jewish History.
Edith Ewenstein was General Director/CEO of a not-for-profit association focusing on public health issues until retiring several years ago. She describes her research for her family roots in Volhynia and Galicia as work in progress. Edith was a member of the JGS conference committees in 1999 and in 2006, as Banquet Co-chair for the first and producing the Banquet Journal for the second. Most recently she co-chaired the JGS 30th Anniversary Brunch and Program. Her volunteer efforts for other genealogy projects include the digitizing of Bronx County naturalization records. Edith also has given presentations on genealogy at the Jewish Community Center (Manhattan) and to Hadassah groups.
Karen Franklin is currently a guest curator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. For twenty years she was director of The Judaica Museum in Riverdale, and also served as director of Family History at the Leo Baeck Institute. A co-chair of the Board of Governors of JewishGen, she is a past president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies and a past chair of the Council of American Jewish Museums. Karen serves on the board of ICOM-US (International Council of Museums), and the International Committee of Memorial Museums of ICOM. She is also a juror for the Obermayer German Jewish History Award. A researcher on looted art, she has worked on cases for the Origins Unknown Agency in the Netherlands, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, and the U. S. Treasury Department. Karen was a member of the JGS Executive Council Member from 1986-1990. She was co-editor of Dorot from 1987-1988. In 1987, Dorot was the recipient of the 1987 National Genealogical Society Newsletter Award.
Gloria Berkenstat Freund was the executive director of a non-profit organization before deciding to devote full time to memorializing her ancestral towns in Poland and their people. She began studying Yiddish in 1996 and has been translating Yizkor Books for Polish and Lithuanian shtetlekh for the past few years. She is JRI-PL Shtetl CO-OP leader for several towns and the coordinator for one of the Polish State Archive indexing projects. Gloria was the Membership VP of JGSLI and the Vice President - Programs for JGS. She was the Program Committee Chair for the 26th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.
Avrum Geller has been engaged in genealogical research on a professional basis for four years, after researching his own family for two decades. He has conducted family history workshops in assisted-living facilities and with Jewish service organizations. He performed volunteer work to help build online databases of New York City records. He is a volunteer with DOROT, an agency providing volunteer social services primarily for homebound elders. He has been a member of the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus, performing music set to Yiddish text. He was previously Vice President – Marketing Services of Block Drug Company, a manufacturer of healthcare and household products, and was recognized as a specialist in advertising and marketing to older adults. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa.
Sheila Heitner, a retired researcher at New York University Medical Center, has been working on her family history for several years. Her father's family came from Czernowitz and her mother's family came from Hungary, both before WWI. She has been an active JGS member for some years now, has been a volunteer for John Martino’s data entry projects, as well as for the Industrial Removal project for AJHS.
David M. Kleiman, publisher, historian, and educator, has been a genealogist for over 35 years. He is co-founder and chair of the New York Computers and Genealogy Special Interest Group, now in its 24th year and is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and Genealogical Speakers Guild. David is president of Heritage Muse, Inc., digital and print publishers in the humanities. The company designed and published the IAJGS Conference Syllabi in 2006 (NY) and 2008 (Chicago) and is actively working on 2009 (Philadelphia). He created the databases for the Routes to Roots website Eastern European records search and he is designing and building the website for the new Loeb Visitors Center at the historic Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. He has authored articles for PC Magazine, Home & Small Business Computing, Avotaynu, and other genealogical publications. He currently serves on the JGS EC, having served in the past as editor of Dorot. His recent genealogical consulting work has involved him in the publication of Lots of Lehmans, by Ken Libo, and An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876-1953) and her Early American Jewish Ancestors, to be released Spring 2009. Trained in archaeology and anthropology, and through his work as a museum educator, university instructor, curator, folklorist, and systems and business consultant, David has developed a strong vision of using personal genealogies and family stories to illuminate and humanize broader historical contents and concepts.
Michael Levine, Vice President Membership, is a Systems Analyst in the telephone industry. He started researching his family when he was in high school. He resumed his search when he found that he could combine his interest in genealogy with his interest in computers. Michael led an effort to transliterate revision lists from the Borisov District of Belarus, whence his family originates.
Roni Seibel Liebowitz, Vice President Programming, began researching her family history in January 1997 and soon after became involved with Jewish Records Indexing-Poland and JewishGen. A board member of JRI-Poland, she is the Archive Coordinator of Lodz, and Town Leader and Shtetl CO-OP Coordinator for Belchatow. She serves as webmaster (with technical help from Jerry Liebowitz) and coordinator of JewishGen’s ShtetLinks for Belchatow, Lodz, and the Lodz Area Research Group (LARG) websites, and is also Project Coordinator for the Belchatow and Piotrkow Yizkor Book sites. As consultant and participant in the documentary Angel of Ahlem, a true story about a World War II soldier and the men he liberated, she traveled to Israel, Poland, and the U.S. interviewing survivors and participating in special events related to the documentary. She was the Registration and Exhibit Chairperson of the 26th IAJGS Conference in New York in 2006. A former full-time speech and language pathologist (retired in June 2004), she wonders how she ever fit in the time to work.
Hadassah Lipsius is a Quality Engineering Manager for a major defense contractor. She was co-chair of the 26th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. She is the Transliteration Coordinator and a board member of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland and the Database Manager for the Warszawa Research Group. Das takes pride that her family were city dwellers (i.e. Warszawa and St. Petersburg) for over 200 years.
Howard Rotblatt, Secretary, has been a bank examiner for more than 20 years. Prior to that, he had been an assistant nursing home administrator at several health care facilities in the New York City area. The son of a Holocaust survivor, he has been researching his family history from the Lodz area of Poland for the past ten years.
Steven W. Siegel is library director and archivist at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA in Manhattan. He has chaired the annual Family History Fair (1990-2005) during New York Archives Week. He is a past president of the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York and the 2004 recipient of the Round Table's Award for Archival Achievement. He is president of the Jewish Historical Society of New York, serves on the Jewish Book Council Board of Directors, and is a member of the Cornell University Hillel Board of Trustees and the Cornell University Council. Steve was a founding member of the JGS and president (1985-1989), and he has served as managing editor and acting editor of Dorot. His research and lectures focus on Jewish genealogy, Jewish archival sources and New York City local history. Steve was co-founder and co-editor of Toledot: The Journal of Jewish Genealogy (1977-1982) and compiled the Archival Resources volume of Jewish Immigrants of the Nazi Period in the USA (1978).
Paul Silverstone is the author of several books on naval vessels and is now completing a five-volume series covering all US warships from 1775 to 2007. He is an expert on clandestine immigration to Palestine during the1938-48 period (Aliyah Bet) and has published a monograph "Our Only Refuge -Open the Gates!" He does genealogical research on his family with particular emphasis on families from Winnipeg, Makow Mazowiecki & Shumskoye. Paul has been a member of the Executive Council since December 1996 and was Treasurer of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc. from 2000 to 2007. He is a director of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.
Steve Stein has been a software professional and manager in the telecommunications industry for more than 35 years. He has been researching his own and his wife's genealogies for more than 30 of those years, whose origins include Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine and Romania. He has volunteered for H-SIG and JOWBR, is currently coordinating research projects related to Nesvizh, Belarus, and hopes to start a ShtetLinks page for Kupel, Ukraine in the near future. He has served as president both of the local day school and his synagogue.
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