Teens To Explore Their Roots in New Summer Program
The Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical Society today announced the launch of a new summer program for New York area teens seeking to explore their roots and family history.
The Samberg Family History Program is a two-week, interdisciplinary seminar for junior and senior high school students in which each participant learns to discover his or her family history, to connect his or her family history to Jewish history, and to tell the story in his or her own way.
According to Rachel Fisher, Director of the Center’s Genealogy Institute, “This new summer program is an exciting new way in which we are responding to the interest and demand we are seeing at the Genealogy Institute. Every week, young people are coming to us to learn about their family histories and find creative new ways to explore that history.
The program combines two modules:
On the Move: A Course on Immigration Intensive group and individual study of original historical materials related to Jewish immigration from the Center’s archive, library and museum collections in which participants reconstruct immigrant experiences from primary sources.
Genealogy Searches for one’s own family history using resources at the Center and beyond in which each participant designs his or her own family research program with mentoring from Program Staff.
The program will also include field trips and group activities in which participants will visit neighborhoods where Jewish immigrants settled and will take special tours of museums and archives.
The Samberg Family History Program will be offered twice each summer: July 7 and July 21. Program applications and additional information are available at www.cjh.org/ family/samberg.cfm. All applications must be received no later than April 3, 2003. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by May 30. The program fee is $500, including materials and field trip costs. Need-based financial aid is available. For more information, call (212) 294-8324 or email samberg@cjh.org.
About the Genealogy Institute:
The Genealogy Institute helps new and experienced family history researchers learn about the world of their ancestors.
About the American Jewish Historical Society:
Founded in 1892 as a membership organization, research library, archives and museum, the American Jewish Historical Society is the oldest ethnic historical organization in the United States. The Society was the first systematic collector of archival, published and artifactual sources depicting the religious, communal, cultural and political life of American Jewry, and the ways in which that community has contributed to the wider society.
About the Center for Jewish History:
The Center for Jewish History, www.cjh.org, is the central resource for the cultural and historical legacy of the Jewish people. Located in the heart of Chelsea, NYC, it is within a ten-block radius of one of the largest populations of college and graduate students in the country. The Center serves the worldwide academic and general communities with combined holdings of approximately 100 million archival documents, a half million books, and tens of thousands of photographs, artifacts, paintings and textiles. The Center is comprised of a partnership of five major institutions of Jewish scholarship, history and art: American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. For more information on The Center for Jewish History, visit www.cjh.org or call (212) 294-8303.#
