## *Researching the Sephardic Communities of the Ottoman Empire*## *Jonathan McCollum*## *Sephardic World, 4 August 2024*Researching the Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire has always been challenging. Our presentation by ***Jonathan McCollum*** will cover the use and accessibility of records from the Ottoman Empire for research into Sephardic families and communities. The discussion will include a review of imperial records in Ottoman Turkish and some record sets available in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish).***Jonathan McCollum, Ph.D. ***is the content manager for the MENA region at FamilySearch and a visiting scholar at Brigham Young University where he leads the BYU/FamilySearch Ottoman Palestine Family History Project. He specialises in the history of the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire. His forthcoming book with Edinburgh University Press, The Anti-Colonial Empire: Volunteerism and Humanitarianism in the Late Ottoman World, 1908-1924, investigates the role of humanitarianism and volunteerism in the final wars of the Ottoman Empire and the independence movements of its successor states. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, the Council for American Overseas Research Centers, the American Research Institute in Turkey, and the Institute of Turkish Studies. After completing his BA (2004) and MA (2007) in history at BYU, Jonathan worked in the field of education in Turkey and Qatar for several years before returning to graduate school at UCLA, where he obtained his PhD in 2018.Join us on Sunday 4 August 2024, at 11am in LA, 2pm in NYC, 7pm in London, 8pm in Paris/Amsterdam, 9pm in Jerusalem, and 4am the next morning in Sydney. Patrons are invited to join us live on Zoom.This meeting will not be live broadcast on YouTube this week but premiered on YouTube next week at https://www.youtube.com/SephardicGenealogyAndHistory (and please remember to subscribe to the channel).To join us live, please subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/sephardi***Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain***We are pleased to share the news that David Mendoza has been elected to the Council of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain. The JGSGB is one of a handful of Jewish genealogical societies that seriously engages with Sephardic genealogy. They have a specialist Dutch and Sephardic Special Interest Group and probably Europe’s largest Jewish genealogy library.***Can you Volunteer or Donate?***The Sephardic Genealogical Society is looking for volunteers. If you have skills and time to spare, please complete our questionnaire. We are particularly looking for people with video editing, fundraising and web design experience.https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1aFsubxSY_PtauwOJzlayxBmLTKjXL8kTzz50jmmRiHA/viewform?edit_requested=trueWe rely on the support of our patrons. If you can support our work by donating as little as $5/month, please visit our Patreon page. We have a number of projects that require more substantial support. Please let us know if you can help. https://www.whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaHxAjhJ93wTMhWkTF0i***Join our new WhatsApp channel***We have set up a WhatsApp channel to better help communication with supporters. If you have WhatsApp, please follow the channel.https://www.whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaHxAjhJ93wTMhWkTF0i***From the Sephardic Archives***Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651-1825. In her 2020 Sephardic World presentation, ***Aviva Ben-Ur*** sets the story of Suriname's Jews in the larger context of Atlantic slavery and colonialism and argues that, like other frontier settlements, they achieved and maintained their autonomy through continual negotiation with the colonial government. An important discussion of a slaveholding community.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49g-AGWnBTA