Blog/August 2009/Aug 28th

Aug 28th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!

Sarah and Daniela both started school this week -- one day for Sarah, and two for Daniela. Sarah also finished her work, and Daniela is trying to find some work.

We're getting back to routine now that summer is grinding to a halt and our visitors have all returned home. So we'll have a nice quiet shabbat this week, B"H. Of course, the peace and quiet will only last a couple more weeks: the "high holidays" are coming upon us quickly, and we're not really ready yet! Gotta work on that 'holiday mood'...

In the ongoing family-tree project, quite a bit of progress was made on my side -- to large extent due to the incredible resource of the CMU Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project. Within a short period I was able to verify dates of birth and family relationships which had been a mystery for a long time. Between that and the online US census records (from "Ancestry.com") I was able to piece together quite a bit. Now if I could only break the Atlantic barrier and figure out exactly where the people migrated from in Europe! I did discover a new cousin living in Israel, which is exciting.

Esther's side of the family tree is even more difficult. Though she knows where her family came from (Smyrna, Beirut and Damascus), they all had basically the same four or five names. So she knows where they came from, but will have trouble verifying the people themselves; while I have no idea where they came from.

Sorry, I don't have anything fascinating to say this week. Maybe next time I'll be more interesting? Tune in and see...

Until next week,
Shabbat shalom!

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