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Saint John Jewish Family Tree - Introduction

The Saint John Jewish community was made up of between 200 and 300 families who came to the city from England and Eastern Europe between 1858 and the late 1940s. Some families arrived together and those who arrived alone encouraged other family members to follow – spouses, children, siblings and parents. Marriage within the community further consolidated family connections. Attempts to trace one family inevitably lead to links to other families in the community and new ways of connecting the community together as a whole. If one had a large enough space, it is quite possible that nearly every Jewish resident of Saint John and their descendants could be linked through a family tree.

Exploring those connections and delving into family stories is the focus of this project. Information for the family stories will be gathered from documents (family trees, synagogue and organization records, newspaper clippings, etc.), oral interviews and photographs held in the collections of the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum alongside other archival and online sources.

The stories which will be told in these blog posts have been inspired by more than thirty years of research into the history of Saint John Jewish community. 

These blog posts  are meant to read and shared, but are not intended to be static documents. Please accept this invitation to comment on what you read – with your help, any errors and omissions can be fixed and if you have details to add including memories, anecdotes, and archival documents and photographs, we can make the stories even better. 

I look forward to hearing from you – sjjhm@nbnet.nb.ca

Katherine Biggs-Craft

Executive Director / Curator

Saint John Jewish Historical Museum

January 15, 2024

To comment on this story please send an email to sjjhm@nbnet.nb.ca 

This project is made possible with funding from the Archaeology and Heritage Branch, Province of New Brunswick through their Exhibit Renewal Digital Component program and the unwavering support of the Jewish families who made Saint John their home.