Henry Wellisch z”l
It is with profound sadness that we advise our members and friends of the death of Henry Wellisch z”l, our president emetirus, on Friday, 11 September 2026, in Toronto.
Henry joined JGS Toronto in 1989. He was the editor of Shem Tov for several years and then served as the society’s fourth president from 1993 to 1998 (the longest term of service by any leader of our society). In 1994, Henry helped to establish the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal. He was a co-organizer of the 2002 IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, hosted in Toronto. He was well-known as a wonderful lecturer and as a human repository of genealogical information that has benefitted many of our family histories. He had numerous articles published and contributed to multiple websites about family history research. His volunteer transcription efforts not only helped researchers with Toronto-based ancestors, but he had been an avid transcriber for JewishGen’s Hungarian Research Division. In 2023, Henry was the recipient of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS)’ Lifetime Achievement Award.
Henry was born in Vienna in 1922. He fled Vienna, with his parents, in December 1939, after the outbreak of World War II. They sailed down the Danube to the Black Sea, and then to the Mediterranean, trying to access British Mandate Palestine. Detained by the British, they were sent to Mauritius where they stayed for the duration of the war. In 1945 Henry joined the Jewish Brigade and fought briefly in Europe before arriving in Palestine in 1946. He joined the fledgling Israeli army and served during the War of Independence in 1948. In 1952, at the age of 30, Henry came to Canada.
On the occasion of his 100th birthday, in September 2022, Neil Richler interviewed Henry in front of an audience of about 85 people in attendance in person and via Zoom. Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage attended remotely and demonstrated several genealogical and archival websites. Daniel surprised Henry with some of the archival documents he found that illustrated Henry’s journey to Israel. You may view Neil’s interview with Henry, including Daniel’s presentation, in its entirety here (beginning at about the 4:00 minute mark).
A funeral service will take place on Wednesday, 16 September 2026; see the Benjamin’s Park Memorial Chapel website for more details as they become available.
We extend our condolences to Henry’s daughter Susan and his many friends and genealogical colleagues. May his memory always be for a blessing.
A selection of photos of Henry from the JGS Toronto archives appears below.
We invite you to share recollections of Henry in the comments below.
Donations to JGS Toronto in Henry’s memory will be gratefully acknowledged.
3 Comments
Henry was one of the guiding lights of Jewish Genealogy in Canada. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude for everything he did.
On behalf of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal, I extend our condolences to Henry’s daughter and his many friends and genealogical colleagues.
I didn’t know Henry well, but I did know him well enough to know that he was incredibly generous with his time and the enormous amount of knowledge he accumulated during his long life. He came out to Hamilton to speak to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Hamilton and gave us a wonderful presentation after which he followed up with several members. May his memory be for a blessing.
Henry was a very unassuming man. He did not have much formal education but under different life circumstances he would certainly have excelled in academia, probably holding a professorship at some prominent university. He came from humble beginnings in Vienna where his father earned a living selling animal feed. As a teenager Henry had first-hand experience of the worst inclinations of human kind — jail in Pressburg (now Bratislava), imprisonment in Atlit and Mauritius, military service in Europe and Israel. Despite his life challenges, Henry remained cheerful, funny, grateful and very hardworking, continuing his genealogical research right to the end. His story, “Escape from Vienna” is well worth reading.