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About Myself

Yoram photo.jpeg

Shortly after my immigration to Israel from  Poland in 1968 I started to work at the  Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, undoubtedly one of the most important and largest Jewish archives in the world. At first it was a temporary position but soon afterwards I became a tenured archivist, then deputy director and from 1990 to 1998, director of the archives. Simultaneously with my employment, I enrolled in archive studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and received my MLS degree (cum laude) in 1989.                                                                                                                                                

In October 1998, after almost 30 years of work, I retired from the Central Zionist Archives and established myself as a freelance researcher in Jewish genealogy.   

 

Shortly afterwards I was hired by the International Commission on Holocaust-era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) to coordinate its archival research. My two reports to ICHEIC can be accessed via this site. 

Throughout my career, I devoted some of my time to research, firmly believing that an archivist should from time to time change sides and approach archives from a different angle. This resulted in a number of publications on French-Jewish involvement in Palestine before WWI, on Zionism and on Jewish archives.

 

In the framework of my work and research I visited most of the major Jewish and Israeli archives as well as many non-Jewish ones. Most unforgetable were my two visits to the so-called "Special Archives" in Moscow, where archival material originally looted by the Nazis during WWII and recovered by the Red Army in 1945, is kept. I devoted one of my articles to the "Special Archives". 

My Publications

On Jewish Archives 

- "The Jewish Holdings of the Center for Preservation of Historico- Documentary Collections (former "Special Archives")    in Moscow", Arkhiyyon, 12/2003 [in Hebrew].

- "Rothschild, JCA and PICA in Eretz Israel: A Guide to Archival Sources", Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division B, vol. 1, Jerusalem, 1990 (Hebrew). 

"Zosa Szajkowski and the Transfer of French-Jewish Archives to the US", Arkhiyyon, 10-11, 1999. 

 

- "Les archives juives de France a Moscou", Archives Juives, no 32/2, 1999.   

  

- "The Fate of Jewish Archives during and after the Holocaust", In: Preserving Jewish Archives as Part of the European Cultural Heritage, Paris, 2001. 

  

 

 

On French-Jewish Involvement in Palestine before WWI

- "Emile Meyerson and the Initial Involvement of the Jewish Colonization Association in Eretz Israel", Cathedra, 62, December 1991 [in Hebrew]. 

  

- "Land Acquisition by JCA in the Lower Galilee in the Last Years of the 19th Century", Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division B, vol. 2, Jerusalem, 1994 [in Hebrew]. 

  

- "Jewish Colonization Association's Settlement Policy in Eretz Israel, 1896-1899", The Jewish Colonization Association (JCA); Centennial 1891-1991, Jerusalem, 1995 [in Hebrew].  

- "The Ideological Roots of the Sejera Workers Farm", In: Studies in Geography and History in Honour of Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem, 1999 [in Hebrew].

 

- "Les Juifs Francais et la Colonisation Agricole en Palestine avant la Premiere Guerre Mondiale". In: Naissance du Nationalisme Juif, 1880-1904, Lille, 2000.

   

- "Un philosophe comme director general: Emile Meyerson et la Jewish Colonization Association en Palestine", In: De Bonaparte a Balfour; La France, l'Europe occidentale et la Palestine, 1799-1917. Paris, 2001.   

  

On Zionism and Palestine   

 

- "Nahum Sokolow's Paris Diary, January-February 1918, Zionism, 16, 1991 [in Hebrew].

 

- "The Jaffa Assembly, 1894", Cathedra, 66, December 1992 [in Hebrew]. 

- "Le Journal de Nahum Sokolow à Paris (janvier-fevrier 1918)", Tsafon (Lille), 11-12, 1993.  

  

- "Herzl and the Dreyfus Affair", The Journal of Israeli History, vol.15, no. 1, 1994.   

 

- "Between East and West: Edmond de Rothschild and Palestine". In: The Rothschilds: Essays on the History of a European Family, Frankfurt a/M, 1994. 

   

- With Herzl to Jerusalem [Editor], Jerusalem, 1998 [in Hebrew].   

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