Catching up - Salakas town plan 1901

In March 2009 qualified donors received a 1901 town plan of Salakas showing owners of every lot in the town at 7 MB size. The quality of the plan is terrific: print it in colour on A3 and it would look good framed on the wall. The snapshot here does not do it justice.

The plan shows the lot numbers and the names of all the Jewish owners of land and buildings - and all the communal properties.

Compare the pictures to the contemporary satellite view from google http://tinyurl.com/ab5beff - the accuracy is remarkable.

The lists of owners includes:

ARNIST, ASANOVICH, AVERBUKH, AZHINSKY, BAK, BARAKOVSKY, BARST, BEGAM, BEKER, BERMAN, BICHIK, BLEKHMAN, BLEYMAN, BLOSHTEYN, BRAUDO, BRAVO, BRIND, BRINKER, BYK, DEYCH, DUBINOVSKY, EPSHTEYN, EVELSON, EYDELMAN, FELMAN, FRIDLIAND, GADON, GAMBURG, GARBER, GELMAN, GELPERIN, GINDEN, GINDIN, GINZBURG, GLEZER, GLUSHAK, GOLIAND, GORDON, GUTERMAN, IOFE, ITSIKSON, KAGAN, KAMZUL, KARASIN, KATS, KHAIT, KHARMATS, KHAYT, KLAVER, KOPILOVSKY, KORB, KRUZ, KUPERMAN , KUSLEN, LEVIN, LIBERMAN, LIMOVICH, LOPEYKO, LUBOCHKA, MALEROVICH, MALEROVICH , MARGOLIS, MILER, MORDKHOVICH, NEKHEM, OBUZ, OLD CEMETERY , PLOTKA, PODVICH, RAKHMAN, RIFKIND, RIMER, RITS, RITVA, ROKHMAN, ROZENBERG, RUBINSHTEYN, SEGAL, SHAPIRO, SHER, SHERMAN, SHEYNES, SHLIAKHTER, SHMIT, SHTEYN, SHUR, SOLTAN, STRASHUN, SYNAGOGUE, TARN, TEYKHMAN, TSIBEL, TSINMAN, WULFSON, YUDELEVICH, ZAK, and ZURAT,

Forward to 2008!

2008, as I write, looms on the horizon. But the looming doesn't carry menace, but promise. Some of the promise is no more than hope - will we succeed in bringing in significant funding?

But some of the promise is guaranteed. There are a number of translation projects in the works - thanks to specific, generous donations this year - in particular for Salakas and Tauragnai - that will be completed in 2008. When we know how these cost out we will select further translation projects - and I do need group members to tell me what their priorities are.

I thank everyone who has contributed this year and who has helped make this a standout year.

I list below the donations to LitvakSIG for each year from 1999 that have been specified to Zarasai district. All figures are in US$.

1999....................228.00
2000................1,358.00
2001.................1,600.00
2002 ...............1,000.00
2003...................304.00
2004....................371.00
2005....................136.00
2006....................139.00
2007................4,054.00

This year's scale of donations means that we can make real progress. Please help keep this momentum going. If you haven't already, please think about a major donation - from yourself, from your family or from someone else who might be persuaded to contribute.

Ensuring the project's future

The Group has supported Zarasai district research over more than 8 years. Over US$5,000 has been raised by the group and, with general LitvakSIG funds, about US$12,000 spent on many thousands of records over the past 10 years. This has been fantastic work by a number of district and research co-ordinators.

We have gone away and looked at what remains to be done. There are probably more than 25,000 records still to translate for the District. Knowing current costs and estimating future costs, this will probably cost more than US$20,000. At current donation rates, it would take many years, and not before 2020, to gather this. I don't want to wait that long. I'm hoping you share this feeling.

I am therefore today starting a more active search for donors - including those at the US$100 level - but particularly for larger donors. The objective is to have the funds in hand within the year to be 100% confident that we can achieve the goal of 100% translation of Russian Imperial records for the District and its shtetls within a reasonable time. With help from Olga Zabludoff, Maria Krane and Linda Cantor, I have prepared a short presentation about the project. This is available as a pdf file.

I now need more help - and this is from you. I'm not asking you for the money (although if you want...), but for help in getting our message out to people who might be able to help. There are a number of ways this might be made to happen, that could include talking with:

(1) Individuals or charitable foundations that you know and who might be open to help.

(2) Individuals in your own families. I'm approaching the more successful members of my clan. Some of them have been thrilled to be brought into contact with long lost and never known cousins and are positive about helping.

(3) Your family as a group. Bringing together many small donations - perhaps in honour of a founding father or mother - has the potential to add up to a decent amount. I'm hoping that if even a small proportion of the 1,000+ people in my clan might be induced to give US$10 each, then that could be US1,000 raised.

The pdf presentation is the basic tool. It needs to be moved out to where it might do some good. Ask me for a copy.

It's easy for any one to donate http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/HTML/donate.htm for credit cards and http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/HTML/donor.htm is the form for a mail in donation.

Please use me as a resource; to talk with people, to answer questions, to persuade and to let me know how things are going: are there problems with the presentation? or the message? how could this be done better?

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. If you have any other ideas for how we might achieve our goal, please let me know. If you can suggest other people I should be mailing, tell me. And if you find someone who might give a very, very big amount: we can use it - LitvakSIG has a range of projects that need support.

Remember: our work as a Group is all about delivering "the gift of the past for the Jewish family of the future". Please help me make this