Connecticut Jewish Genealogy Event To Feature Dr. Leon Chameides

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) May 4, 2009 -- The Jewish Genealogical Society Of Connecticut (JGSCT) announced today that Dr. Leon Chameides, retired director of Pediatric Cardiology, Hartford Hospital and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, and Holocaust survivor, will be a special guest lecturer discussing “Return To Eastern Galicia,” on Sunday, May 17, 2009 from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. With an open invitation to the public, the free JGSCT program will be held at Godfrey Memorial Library, 134 Newfield Street, Middletown, Connecticut, phone 860.346.4375.

Chameides was born in Katowice, Poland, where his father was a rabbi. During World War Two, he lived in a small village near Lviv, now in the Ukraine and for two years in a Greek Catholic monastery. He was educated in Russia, Poland and England and came to the United States in 1949. He has been active in the Jewish community, serving on the boards of the Commission of Jewish Education, Jewish Historical Society and Congregation Agudas Achim. Chameides was the founding chair of Pediatric Cardiology at Hartford Hospital and also served as a clinical professor of Pediatrics at the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Yeshiva College and a medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has been doing genealogical research for over 20 years and has translated many articles from Polish and Hebrew for JewishGen (www.jewishgen.org), the Internet gateway to Jewish family history.

Eastern Galicia is the region where many European Jews lived and died before and during the Nazi atrocities of World War Two. Governed by Poland, Ukraine and Austria-Hungry, the area incorporated hundreds of “shtetles” or villages where Ashkenazi Jews lived for hundreds of years. Chameides will offer a genuine glimpse about daily life in Galicia and how to use proven research techniques for genealogical investigations.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Connecticut, located in Godfrey Memorial Library (www.godfrey.org), was formed in 1988. The extensive library of JGSCT, with books, periodicals and audiotapes, is available for loan and is open for research before and after events. For more information about JGSCT, visit www.jgsct-jewish-genealogy.org.

More information can be found online at http://www.jgsct-jewish-genealogy.org

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