Sephardic Genealogy

21/05/2026

Certificate issued by the Chief Rabbinate of Alexandria, Egypt, on 12 June 1904.
It records the family of Vittorio Luzzatto, a San Marino citizen under Italian protection.
His mother was Marietta Sacerdoti, widow of Alberto Luzzatto. The certificate names Vittorio and Elisa Luzzatto as their legitimate children.

19/05/2026

Book Review: Histoire des Juifs à Bordeaux (1875) by Théophile Malvezin

Théophile Malvezin’s Histoire des Juifs à Bordeaux, published in 1875, remains one of the classic histories of the Portuguese Jewish community of Bordeaux. It is not a recent work, but it still has real value because Malvezin drew on local archival material and understood that Bordeaux’s Jewish history was central to the wider story of the Western Sephardic diaspora. His aim was to bring together earlier studies, printed sources, and documents from Bordeaux and the Gironde, including notarial records, church and communal registers, municipal papers, and records concerning Portuguese and Spanish merchants.

The book is particularly useful where it discusses the Portuguese and Spanish merchants who settled in Bordeaux, many of them from New Christian backgrounds, and who gradually became part of an openly Jewish community. Malvezin shows how their history was shaped by commerce, municipal privilege, royal toleration, and the ambiguous legal status under which they lived for generations. They were often treated officially as Portuguese merchants before they could be recognised openly as Jews.

For genealogists, this is the book’s main value. It places families within the legal, commercial, and communal world in which they lived. It is especially relevant to those researching Western Sephardic families whose records connect Bordeaux with Portugal, Spain, Bayonne, Amsterdam, London, Livorno, the Caribbean, and the wider Atlantic world.

The book should still be used carefully. Some of the early historical material is dated, and names, dates, and claims should be checked against the original records wherever possible. But that does not lessen its usefulness. Malvezin preserves a substantial nineteenth-century synthesis of Bordeaux Jewish history, drawing on sources and local knowledge that remain important for researchers today.

Histoire des Juifs à Bordeaux is best approached as a foundational secondary source: not a substitute for archival work, but an important guide to it. It reminds us that Western Sephardic genealogy cannot be reconstructed from synagogue registers alone. The lives of these families are also found in notarial acts, municipal files, commercial records, royal permissions, lawsuits, burial records, and the changing language by which states described Jews who were not always permitted to call themselves Jews.

A copy can be downloaded here: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HloLAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y

18/05/2026

This presentation explores the history and genealogy of the Jews of Bosnia, with particular attention to Sephardic families, communal records, migration, and the wider Balkan context.

Bosnia’s Jewish history is closely connected with the post-1492 Sephardic diaspora. Families who settled in Sarajevo and other towns preserved distinctive religious, linguistic, and communal traditions, while also forming part of the broader Ottoman, Balkan, and later Austro-Hungarian worlds. The talk considers how these histories can be reconstructed through surviving records, published studies, communal memory, and digital resources.

The presentation also highlights the value of online collections, including the Serbian Jewish Digital Library:

Serbian Jewish Digital Library

Topics include:

Sephardic settlement in Bosnia
Sarajevo and other Bosnian Jewish communities
Family history and migration patterns
Sources for Bosnian Jewish genealogy
The survival and dispersal of Bosnian Jewish descendants
Digital resources for further research

This video will be of interest to anyone researching Sephardic genealogy, Balkan Jewish history, Ottoman Jewish communities, or the wider history of Jewish life in south-eastern Europe.

Keywords: Sephardic genealogy, Bosnian Jews, Sarajevo Jews, Balkan Jewish history, Ottoman Jews, Sephardic diaspora, Jewish genealogy, Ladino, Bosnia Jewish records, Sephardic families, Serbian Jewish Digital Library.

This presentation explores the history and genealogy of the Jews of Bosnia, with particular attention to Sephardic families, communal records, migration, and...

18/05/2026

Amsterdam City Archives’ New Consultation System Raises Research Concerns

The new consultation environment of the Amsterdam City Archives has caused considerable concern among researchers. After criticism from users, the archive has reportedly restored, with some difficulty, the old inventory “tree structure”, which many felt should never have disappeared. However, the restored structure is still said to contain ordering errors, and the archive is now asking users to identify remaining problems in the system.

The principal concern is that the new system appears poorly suited to historical and genealogical research. Indexes have been merged with the archives themselves, while the filtering system reportedly produces large numbers of confusing or irrelevant results. More seriously, the former advanced search functions within the indexes — allowing, for example, a child’s name to be combined with the mother’s name — have been replaced by a single search field. The new system also appears not to support wildcards at the beginning or in the middle of personal names or place names, a serious limitation when working with variant spellings, historical records, and multilingual sources.

These concerns have apparently been raised with the archive for almost a year, including with former management and the staff member responsible for the system. Users have also discussed the matter in meetings with interim management and in sessions involving the Royal Netherlands Historical Society. According to those involved, the archive’s response has so far been that researchers should learn to search in a different way, rather than that the system should be adapted to meet established research needs.

The archive is now inviting feedback on this second version of the system. Researchers who use the Amsterdam City Archives, especially those working with historical, family history, or name-based records, are strongly encouraged to test the beta version and submit detailed comments. This may be the final opportunity to ensure that the system remains usable for serious archival and genealogical research. Feedback should be sent to Nelleke van Zeeland at the Amsterdam City Archives, who is collecting comments on the new consultation environment.

If you want to comment, email [email protected]

15/05/2026

Images of Sephardic Jews in Constantinople/Istanbul in the early 18th century.

From Recueil de cent estampes représentant différentes Nations du Levant, after paintings by Jean-Baptiste Van Mour / Vanmour, commissioned by Charles de Ferriol, published by Jacques Le Hay, Paris, 1714.

13/05/2026

Petition Submitted in Morocco Concerning Citizenship for Descendants of Moroccan Jews

The Jerusalem Post has reported that a citizen petition has been submitted to the Moroccan Parliament calling for Moroccan citizenship to be granted to descendants of Moroccan Jews who emigrated from the country. According to the report, Petition 321183 was presented to the House of Representatives on 30 April 2026 and asks that Moroccan nationality be recognised for former Moroccan Jews who renounced it, as well as for their children and grandchildren. The petition also calls for simplified administrative procedures, including an online application system, and for measures recognising the historic role of Moroccan Jews within Moroccan society.

Moroccan media coverage suggests that the proposal is not currently a Government Bill but a citizen legislative initiative. Similar proposals reportedly failed previously through lack of signatures. The Jerusalem Post also noted opposition from some within Morocco’s Jewish community. Jacky Kadoch, president of the Jewish Community of Marrakech, stated that many descendants of Moroccan Jews are already able to obtain citizenship under existing law and argued that new legislation was unnecessary. Moroccan nationality law already allows many descendants to claim citizenship by descent, while the 2011 Moroccan constitution formally recognised the Hebrew component of Moroccan heritage. The practical impact of the petition therefore remains unclear, although it reflects continuing official and public discussion in Morocco concerning the relationship between the Moroccan State and the Moroccan Jewish diaspora.

13/05/2026

Yahasra: Moroccan Jewish Burial Database

Yahasra.org is a new website that claims to have the largest digital archive dedicated to Morocco's Jewish cemeteries, with over 30,000 burial records across 53 communities, from Tangier to the Sahara.

Visit the site here: https://yahasra.org/

12/05/2026

Book Review: Inscriptions tumulaires des anciens cimetières israélites d'Alger by Isaac Bloch

Few nineteenth-century works on North African Jewish history remain as useful as Isaac Bloch’s Inscriptions Tumulaires des Anciens Cimetières Israélites d’Alger (Paris, 1888). Compiled by the Grand Rabbi of Algiers, the volume gathers funerary inscriptions from the old Jewish cemeteries of Algiers, translating and commenting on them while adding biographical notices on prominent individuals and families. Although modest in appearance, it preserves material that in many cases may no longer survive in situ.

The book is particularly valuable because Bloch approached the inscriptions not merely as epitaphs but as historical documents. The entries contain names, dates, titles, places of origin, rabbinic lineages, communal offices, and occasional references to wider Mediterranean connections. Many inscriptions reflect the mixed character of Algerian Jewry, where long-established local traditions interacted with families of Iberian origin and later arrivals from Livorno and elsewhere. The result is an unusually rich portrait of Jewish Algiers over several centuries.

Bloch also provides glimpses into the intellectual and religious life of the community. Rabbis, physicians, merchants, poets, and communal leaders appear throughout the volume, often accompanied by extracts of Hebrew verse or learned formulae typical of Sephardic funerary culture. For readers interested in the broader history of Jewish North Africa, the work offers evidence not easily found in official archives or communal records.

More than 135 years after publication, the book remains an important source for the study of Jewish life in Ottoman and early colonial Algeria. It deserves to be better known, particularly now that digitised copies have become accessible online through major libraries.

You can download the book here: https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/titleinfo/946767

11/05/2026

Resources for Researching the Jews of Split

The European Jewish History Project website has made available downloadable sources on the historic Jewish community of Split (Spalato). These include dossiers from the Državni arhiv u Splitu, especially the Morpurgo family fond and the židovska općina, or Jewish community, fond. The material is relevant to Split’s Sephardic past, including the early modern Jewish settlement near Diocletian’s Palace, the market, and the harbour.

In 1942, during the N**i occupation, the synagogue was damaged and many ritual objects, books, Torah scrolls, and archives were burned in the town square. The surviving downloadable records provide useful material for researching Jewish Split, its families, and its place in the wider Sephardic and Adriatic worlds.

See here: https://euronetjewishproject.wordpress.com/2022/06/07/virtual-sources-for-yugoslavian-jewish-split-community/

11/05/2026

Portugal Ends the Sephardic Nationality Law

Portugal’s President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has promulgated changes to the Portuguese nationality law approved by the Portuguese Parliament, including the closure of the special naturalisation route for descendants of Jews of Portuguese origin.

The parliamentary measure appears in: Assembleia da República – Proposta de Lei n.º 1/XVII/1. According to reports citing Decreto da Assembleia da República n.º 48/XVII, the law will only enter into force following publication in the Diário da República.

The Sephardic nationality route, introduced in 2015 under legislation approved in 2013 as a form of historical reparation, allowed descendants of Portuguese Jews to apply for nationality without living in Portugal. That route is now being abolished for future applicants.

The most important question now concerns pending applications already submitted to the Portuguese authorities.

In his official statement, the President stressed that pending cases should not be “effectively affected” by the new law and that applicants should not suffer because of delays caused by the Portuguese State itself. The President’s statement does not bind the Ministry of Justice or the IRN. However, his comments may carry political and interpretative weight, especially if the treatment of pending applications is later challenged before the Portuguese courts.

The official parliamentary documentation also shows that the proposed legislation itself included transitional provisions linked to 19 June 2025, and these provisions attracted constitutional scrutiny during the legislative process.

Reports in the Portuguese press and commentary by Portuguese legal scholars have raised concerns that some applications may not be treated by the authorities as formally “started” until they are internally moved into processing by the IRN (Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado), which operates under the Ministry of Justice. Critics argue that this could unfairly expose existing applicants to the harsher new rules even if they applied years earlier.

At present, it remains unclear how pending Sephardic applications will ultimately be treated. However, the President’s statement, together with the constitutional concerns raised during the legislative process, may strengthen the argument that applications already submitted should continue to be assessed under the previous legal framework rather than under the new rules introduced in 2026.

10/05/2026

The Importance of Mathilde Tagger z’’l (1933-2014)

The late Mathilde A. Tagger was described as “a force of nature”, and few people did more to give Sephardic genealogy a serious practical and scholarly foundation. Born in Tangier on 31 August 1933, the daughter of two teachers in the Alliance Israélite Universelle schools in Morocco, she later settled in Jerusalem, where she trained in Library and Information Sciences at the Hebrew University. She went on to serve as Chief Librarian of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the Hebrew University from 1958 to 1978, and later as Scientific Adviser for Special Information Projects at Israel’s Ministry of Science and Development from 1980 to 1990. She died in Jerusalem on 27 December 2014.

Her importance to Sephardic genealogy is hard to overstate. She was not simply a collector of names but a creator of tools: databases, bibliographies, indexes, gazetteers and reference works that made scattered Sephardic material searchable and usable. Active in genealogy from 1986, she founded the Sephardim SIG in 1997 and over the years created about 120 databases, most later incorporated into SephardicGen, covering nearly 100,000 surnames. Much of the practical infrastructure on which Sephardic research has depended for years owed something to her work.

She had a particular gift for taking bodies of material that were technically available but very hard to use, and turning them into something accessible. That was true of her annotated index to Joseph Nehama’s Histoire des Israélites de Salonique, but also of many other projects across the Sephardic world. Her books included Guidebook for Sephardic and Oriental Genealogical Sources in Israel (with Yitzchak Kerem, 2006), Dictionary of Bulgarian Jewish Surnames and A Dictionary of Sephardic Given Names, both published posthumously in 2015. She also published numerous articles in Hebrew, French and English journals, including Sharsheret HaDorot, R***e du Cercle de Généalogie Juive, Etsi and Avotaynu. Her work was recognised with the IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, and she was further honoured for the Montefiore Census digitisation project.

Those achievements only partly explain the regard in which she was held. What stands out is the scale of her generosity and determination, to which we can personally attest. She kept indexing, compiling and correcting almost to the end of her life, and she left behind not just publications but a great deal of the working apparatus that others still rely on. For anyone interested in Sephardic family history, names, archives and communities, Mathilde Tagger was one of the indispensable builders of the field.