Stuart Rosenblatt, Dublin based genealogist and social historian, has amassed an enormous collection of the archival heritage of the Irish Jewish Community spanning approximately three centuries and containing details of over 54,000 individual records . He has collated this information in nineteen huge bound volumes which he has donated to the National Library of Ireland, the National Archives of Ireland, the Genealogical Society of Ireland and the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin.

This unique project has taken Stuart over twenty years and brought him to every city, large town and county in Ireland in the quest for the archival heritage.

See his website at: http://www.irishjewishroots.com/names/

UK SIG Meeting: “Westward Ho! with an Irish Stopover” (Mon-157), 3:00-4:15 P.M.

The story of the migration of the European Jewry to the United States has been the subject of many eminent studies, best-selling books and even blockbuster movies, but none has yet focused on the little-known, but highly significant, incremental aspect of that migration.

This story of Jewish migration to North America was not always that straightforward for the Eastern European Jewry. Prejudice, poverty and exploitation resulted in many unintended ‘stopovers’ in Western Europe before facing the perils of the North Atlantic Ocean. One stopover was Ireland and, indeed, some never left, stayed prospered and then, a generation or two later, continued – Westward Ho!

This presentation explores this journey at the last major ‘stopover’ at the edge of Western Europe in Ireland. It will examine its impact on the Irish Jewish Community over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially, its rise and eventual decline due to the continuing westward migration

Topics: Immigration and migration over the ages, Ireland