***European Days of Jewish Heritage - Sephardic Q&A******The Lost World of Monastir***There is no Sephardic World meeting this week. We return on Sunday 15 September 2024 with our contribution to the European Days of Jewish Heritage. The Sephardic Genealogical Society will host a free online Q&A session for everyone exploring their Iberian Sephardic ancestry. You are already on our mailing list. If you have any friends or relatives with questions about their Sephardic ancestry, invite them to join our free mailing list at: [https://www.sephardic.world/sephardic-world](https://www.sephardic.world/sephardic-world)***The Lost World of Monastir: Sephardic Jews in Ottoman and Yugoslav Macedonia***Join us for the YouTube premiere of this talk on Sunday 8 September 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. Watch here: [https://youtu.be/TWKrpRrZGs0](https://youtu.be/TWKrpRrZGs0)Sephardic Jews are believed to have arrived in Monastir, today called Bitola, in the years immediately after the Expulsion from Spain. The history of the community reflects Jewish Europe. This Ladino-speaking population survived changes in borders and rulers but eventually succumbed to the Holocaust in which 99% of the city’s Jews were murdered by the Nazis. This meeting will focus on the community’s life and what few documents are available to Sephardic family historians.Our speaker, David Mendoza, is a Sephardic genealogist, co-host of Sephardic World, trustee of A Nação Hebraica, and an Admin of The Sephardic Diaspora group on Facebook. He was recently elected to the council of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain.**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/u/0/d/1aFsubxSY_PtauwOJzlayxBmLTKjXL8kTzz50jmmRiHA/viewform?edit_requested=true](https://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/d/1aFsubxSY_PtauwOJzlayxBmLTKjXL8kTzz50jmmRiHA/viewform?edit_requested=true)We 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.patreon.com/sephardi](https://www.patreon.com/sephardi)***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](https://www.whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaHxAjhJ93wTMhWkTF0i)***From the Sephardic Archives***Jews in the Maghreb - Their Surnames and their Roots. Jews in North Africa – the Maghreb - have multiple origins including Berber, Musta’arabi, and Iberian. It is often difficult to identify which family fits in where. Alexander Beider will discuss how he has approached the challenge. He will share case studies, including examples of names derived from Arab and Berber tribes, and Jews of the Sahara. He will also discuss Sephardi migrations to North Africa.Alexander Beider holds PhDs from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Sorbonne in Paris. He has established himself as the world expert on Jewish surnames, their origins and geographic distribution. He is also the co-author with Stephen P. Morse of the Beider–Morse Phonetic Name Matching Algorithm. His dictionaries of Jewish surnames, published by Avotaynu, have become standard reference works for Jewish genealogists. Watch here.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqHfwxCenjs&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqHfwxCenjs&feature=youtu.be)Best wishesTon and DavidSephardic World