Sue Diamond-Gardner
It is a privilege to work for you our members, and to be entrusted with leading our Society in the coming year.
On behalf of JGS Toronto, we welcome you to our website. We hope you enjoy a host of information to help you with your genealogical research. Society membership has its benefits and provides access to members to the full site.
But here are also research tips and links here – local, national, and international – for all visitors to our website.
I am grateful to the leaders who have preceded me; they built a strong organization, from the grassroots up. The members of our Board are incredibly talented. They are continually building on our strengths and adapting to a changing world, bringing us a variety of programs, resources, technology, focus groups, and mentorship.
The pandemic has created challenges and opportunities. The challenge has been replacing our in-person meetings over the past two years with virtual ones. We are working towards bringing you a combination of hybrid meetings and Zoom only.
The opportunity was our ability to share our resources and speakers with a worldwide audience. Because of this we have grown to include members from abroad, enriching our society with new perspectives. Likewise other societies have opened their doors to share meaningful presentations with our members. This fellowship is what our roots are all about. Bridges have been built that make us more aware of our sister Jewish genealogical societies throughout the world.
I am excited to highlight a few changes we are working on: our upcoming off-site education program at the Betel Centre; new SIGs (Special Interest Groups); and a continuation of E-blasts that will keep you informed of both our upcoming events, and related events outside of our society. We expect an exciting year ahead that will include speakers or workshops on Jewish genealogy, history, and culture. Our quarterly journal Shem Tov will bring you articles by members as well as current genealogical topics of interest in family history and genetic genealogy. The Mentors and Mavens match-up is off and running. Our facilitators guide researchers who need direction in their research. Other important work our committees are doing , not only for our society, but the greater international Jewish community, are cemetery updates for JOWBR, Mem-Plaques, virtual plaques, and the Polish translations project.
Stay tuned and watch for announcements in your weekly E-blasts, Shem Tov, and right here for updates on our activities. Better still, if there is something that inspires you, please reach out to any one of our volunteer coordinators and get added to a committee.
Sue Diamond-Gardner
July 2022