A place in history: Genealogy, Jewish identity, modernity

This work is an ethnographic study of contemporary Jewish genealogy, the phenomenon of Jews researching their family histories and creating narratives about them, This study views Jewish genealogy as an example of Jews turning to history as a source of identity in modernity. The study asks whether history can function as a religious symbol, serving the continuity of Jewish identity, when the transmission of family and group history has become so fragmented in modernity.;Jewish genealogy became an organized hobby in the United States in 1977, with the formation of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York (JGSNY), the organization that served as the author's enter into the world of Jewish genealogy. Since then genealogy has become one of the most popular hobbies among Jews and in the United States in general. Data from in-depth interviews with Jewish genealogists and participant observation with JGSNY suggest that Jewish genealogy fulfills a religious function, providing narratives of family history that serve as a central source of identity. Genealogical research involves conducting oral history interviews with elders, conducting documentary research, and traveling to ancestral towns. Genealogists blend the verifiable information they gather with imaginings about the past to create narratives of family history. The experience of creating such narratives works to strengthen a genealogist's Jewish identity, so that Jewishness feels like an inherited inextricable aspect of self, and individual identity is subjectively connected to the collectivity, the Jewish people. Thus, the turn to history does participate in the construction of Jewish peoplehood in modernity.