The Jews of Tire, Turkey

Tire, is a town in Izmir province, which is located in the western part of the Anatolian Peninsula, on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea. With its climate, location and large seaport it has long been an important city, dating back at least 5,000 years.  
The Jewish community in the area is also long established, dating back to sometime in the early 1400's when 2 Ottoman sultans invited the Jews who had been persecuted in Spain and Portugal to settle in the Ottoman cities. The community truly became a melting pot as not only did the Jews come from Spain and Portugal, but also  Greece, and in the 17th century, places such as Italy and Holland. It was in the early 1600's, when the Jewish people truly

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became a community and built their first synagogue. In 1609, Rabbi Isaac HaLevi Dayan, arrived from Istanbul, becoming the first Rabbi of Izmir.
Even with the long history of this area, this post is not about that, but is about the incredible work being done to document the Jews who lived in Tire.
Under the leadership of Murat Sanus, the people of Tire will never be forgotten.  His website, www.jewsoftire.com, is a wonderful example of a project that brings family history to life.

The site is very friendly to  researchers and includes incredible amounts of information. In addition to the records we are familiar with this project includes a treasure trove of pictures documenting the families of Tire. In addition to the website, a book of the community, Jewish Citizens Lived in Tire,  has been published and they are hopefully of producing a film about Tire. I would encourage everyone to search through the databases and see what an incredible resource this is. 

Thanks to everyone involved, they will never be forgotten.

Italy, Mantova, Mantova, Jewish Records, 1770-1899

There continues to be some great records being made available at www.familysearch.org for those looking for their Jewish families. Over the last year or so a large number of collections containing the records from Italy have begun to appear in the Historical Collections of FamilySearch. These new databases are part of the
Italian Ancestors Community Project. It seems almost weekly new records from Italy are being added.

This past week 3 new databases were added that look to  have a lot of potential for finding Jewish families. The first database is the Italy, Mantova, Mantova, Jewish records, 1770-1899.     This collection is comprised of the birth, marriage and death records within the custody of the Archive for the Israelite Community of Mantova (Archivio della Communità Israelitica di Mantova). As of today, the collection is very small and is not name search able, however as more and more of the records are indexed the collection will be easier to use. The image below is just one page for the original records. Mantova is located in the North Central part of Italy, south of Verona.

 

In addition to the Jewish records of the community, 2 other databases are also being added to. While they are not Jewish collections they should be very helpful in tying together the family units. They are;

• Italy, Mantova, Mantova, Civil Registration (Comune), 1714-1910
• Italy, Mantova, Mantova, Censuses (Comune), 1750-1900

As with the Jewish records, both are new databases and are small. However, it is possible that people will be able to find their families in all three collections. While there are many doing the indexing, if you have language experience in Italian, it is very easy to get started in sharing your knowledge with others. Visit https://familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing for more information.

The Jews of Valencia and Tortosa and the Spanish Inquisition

For over 30 years the Ventura family has been researching the history of their family, which was driven out of Spain during the inquisition. Their journey has taken them to archives throughout Spain and Italy. The completion of that search has yielded a remarkable treasure for Jewish researchers.

Their history, is now an incredible book, "The Jews of Valencia and Tortosa and the Spanish Inquisition" (FHL book #946.7 K3v). The book, which has been compiled mostly from the trial notes, documents the Jewish families of the area from the late 1300's through the early 1500's. It is the desire of the family to share this history with everyone, so it has now been donated to, and is now part of the collection of the Family History Library. It is available for all researchers to search.

The records of these families can be found in The Jews of Europe.