IAJGS

JRI-Poland takes special pride in Hadassah Lipsius and Robinn Magid receiving the IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award
From: Stanley Diamond
Thu, 13 Aug 2020

It was with a great sense of pride that the board of JRI-Poland learned yesterday that two of our long-time colleagues, Hadassah Lipsius and Robinn Magid were  named co-winners of the 2020 IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Awards.
 
Both Hadassah and Robinn have contributed to the world of Jewish family history in countless ways and for more than 20 years and have been valuable members of the JRI-Poland family
 
I cannot improve on the IAJGS press release announcing the awards to Hadassah and Robinn so I am including excerpts of the text below.
 
The 2020 award to Hadassah and Robinn has additional significance for the entire JRI-Poland family. With their nomination, we are proud to say that every current and former member of the JRI-Poland executive committee has now received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the IAJGS.  They are as follows:
 
2003 - Stanley Diamond
2011 - Michael Tobias
2015 - Judy Baston
2018 - Mark Halpern
2020 - Hadassah Lipsius & Robinn Magid
 
We believe that this recognition individually and collectively is a testament to the devotion and leadership they have provided JRI-Poland as well as their respective JGS societies to which they have contributed in countless way and the various roles  they have played in participating in numerous IAJGS conferences and activities over the years.

Robinn Magid, a Berkeley resident, has been awarded the 2020 IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award for her lifelong commitment to Jewish Genealogy.  The award was presented Aug. 12 at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) 40th International Conference on Jewish Genealogy at its first virtual conference.
 
Among many achievements in her 30 years of experience in Jewish genealogical research is Robinn’s involvement with JRI-Poland.org (Jewish Records Indexing- Poland).  She recently was elected to the new position of assistant director and took over as the project manager of JRI-Poland’s NextGen relational database, search engine and website, its first major overall in 25 years.
 
Robinn’s leadership as a board member for JRI-Poland earned her a city medal in 2017 for inspiring the cultural identity of her family’s hometown of Lublin, Poland as part of the 700th birthday celebration of that city.
 
Robinn had served as Lublin Archives Project Coordinator for JRI-Poland since 1998 and coordinated the JRI-Poland activities for 100 towns in the Lublin area.
 
She served as chair of the 2018 IAJGS Warsaw Conference, the first IAJGS conference in Eastern Europe and established the IAJGS Conference Discussion Facebook Group.  She also worked on the committee that recently updated the  IAJGS Conference Planning Manual.
 
She chairs this year’s IAJGS Conference which initially was scheduled to be in-person in San Diego.  When it had to be cancelled due to Covid-19, she created and chaired a financially successful new IAJGS 2020 Virtual Conference with just a few months to arrange it.

Hadassah Lipsius, a Kew Gardens Hills resident, has been awarded the 2020 IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award for her lifelong commitment to Jewish Genealogy.  The award was presented Aug. 12 at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) 40th International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, at its first virtual conference.
 
Hadassah has been a board member of Jewish Records Indexing- Poland from 1997 to present, a member of the JRI-Poland Executive Committee, data coordinator, Warsaw coordinator and town leader, Shtetl CO-OP Initiative Coordinator.
 
Among her achievements with the Jewish Genealogy Society Inc. (New York), she has been a member of the Executive Council, Board and Administrator of the JGS, Inc. Facebook Group.
 
She was a member of the JewishGen Board of Governors from 2009 – 2016 and data manager of JewishGen’s Warszawa Research Group.
 
Her IAJGS involvement has included being co-chair of the 2006 IAJGS New York Conference, a member of the Conference program committee in 2006, 2018 and 2020, SIG (Special Interest Group) coordinator, 1999 NY IAJGS Conference and a Conference speaker 1999-present.
 
Ms. Lipsius is a Metallurgical Engineer and works as a Supplier Quality Manager for a major Defense Contractor.
 
Stanley Diamond, M.S.M.  (Montreal, 514-484-0100)
Executive Director

Salute to SFBAJGS
San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, We Salute You!

January 2017 – The San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society recently announced that with their membership support, they were fortunate to be able to contribute $7,500 to ten organizations with a focus on genealogy.  The Society encourages donations from members in addition to dues, and uses these donations to make the contributions to other organizations.

The society’s philanthropic efforts will ultimately help the donee organizations to make additional resources available and increase participation in Jewish genealogy.

Over the life of their charitable program, the SFBAJGS has donated more than $26,000 to groups that promote Jewish genealogical research.  The Society makes the donations in order to “give back” to other not-for-profit organizations whose work helps their members and the greater genealogical community with their research.

The IAJGS Board wishes to recognize SFBAJGS’s leadership and membership for their charitable acts, and they wish to encourage other IAJGS members to do what they can to help similar organizations. The SFBAJGS invites organizations thinking about a giving program to contact them at president@sfbajgs.org.

To the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society (SFBAJGS) – Jeremy Frankel, President – we Salute you!

Bill Israel, Chair IAJGS Salutes Committee
with Nolan Altman and Doris Nabel

2015 IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award

Judy Baston, accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award

In recognition of Judy’s tireless work as a LitvakSIG board member, moderator of the LitvakSIG Discussion Group, membership of the JRI-Poland Board, Lomza Archive Coordinator, and moderator of the Lodz Area Research Group and BialyGen discussion groups. Judy was also involved in editing/proofreading Yizkor Book translations for Ciechanowiec, Eisiskes, and Ostrow Mazowiecka, and is a sought-after speaker.