Remember the old days when we used reel-to-reel tape recorders to capture someone’s stories for posterity? And there were no video images at all? Luckily for us, 21st Century cell phone technology gives each of us the opportunity to be a film maker and create compelling videos preserving our family histories.
On Sunday, December 11, 2022, Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati, in partnership with the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, presented a workshop that gave participants all the tools they needed to capture the treasured stories that make a family legacy. Jewish Cemeteries also partnered with Bespoken Live, a local storytelling, story-listening and mindfulness program. The program took place live at the American Jewish Archives in Clifton and streaming online, with over 100 participants combined.
The program focused on the process we can use to elicit stories from our loved ones and the questions we can ask to get our family members talking freely. The goal was to learn how to preserve important moments in people’s lives that speak to who they are. The experience included a brief demonstration and the chance for all participants, both live and online, to practice interviewing and recording techniques in small groups.
The innovative program was facilitated by Joey Taylor, Director of Bespoken Live. For the demonstration portion of the program, Taylor interview Sandy Kaltman, one of the program committee members and an Emerita Trustee of Jewish Cemeteries, in addition to holding many other volunteer roles in Cincinnati. Kaltman is the daughter of survivors of the Holocaust and related part of her story growing up in Cincinnati and how her parents’ experiences had an impact on her life.
Having witnessed a compelling interview, for which Jewish Cemeteries is indebted to Kaltman and Taylor, program attendees were able to practice the interviewing skills in small groups.
Jewish Cemeteries assists hundreds of people a year doing genealogy research, through its online searchable database of the 35,000 burials in its 25 cemeteries and providing access to it 200-years-worth of archival documents. Jewish Cemeteries organized this program as a follow-up to a program in January 2022 that focused on the core aspects of genealogical research, which usually involves primary documents, such as census reports. Knowing that documents often only tell part of the story, and do not preserve the rich texture and color of personal stories, Jewish Cemeteries wanted to create a “part 2” to the earlier program and teach people the other half of genealogy research.
Offered in celebration of Cincinnati’s Jewish Bicentennial, this community program wrapped up more than a year of programming from Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati around the Bicentennial. Topics have included death and funeral customs in the Jewish faith and in other faiths and researching genealogy. In addition to The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, other partnering organizations are Bespoken Live, Cincinnati Public Library, equaSion, Hamilton County Genealogical Society, Over the Rhine Museum and the Judaic Studies Department of the University of Cincinnati College of Arts and Sciences.
The program was recorded and is available for viewing on Jewish Cemeteries’ website: www.jcemcin.org.