Join POLIN Museum for a new online series conducted in English, where various aspects of Jewish life in Poland will be explored. Together with specialists from the POLIN museum, you will delve into the rich heritage of Polish Jews, who may include your own ancestors.

A new online series from POLIN Museum conducted in English
All sessions are held on Zoom, and registration is free

Explore the rich history of your ancestors from Poland and the surrounding regions. Join POLIN Museum genealogy researcher Matan Shefi as he shares valuable insights on where to find support for your genealogical research and which tools to use to uncover your family’s history. Learn the best practices and techniques to connect with your roots and discover your ancestors’ stories.

The webinar will be hosted by Matan Shefi, the Chief Queries Specialist at the POLIN Museum, who has over ten years of experience in Jewish genealogy. He collaborates with academic researchers, governmental bodies, writers, and families worldwide, helping them uncover the stories of Polish-Jewish individuals and their family histories. Born and raised in Israel, Matan is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Who were the women of the shtetl? How did the secular Jewish and non-Jewish literature, education, and novel ideas about sexuality and family that penetrated small towns change women’s position, their self-perception, and gender roles in the shtetl community? This webinar will explore how Jewish women in small towns were not immune to broader processes affecting women in Eastern Europe and globally and will show who were the small-town Jewish women on the eve of the Holocaust.

Aleksandra Jakubczak is a historian who specializes in the social and economic history of East European Jewry in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on women and gender. She received her PhD from Columbia University and, in 2024, was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Currently, she is the Chief Historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and a research fellow at the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.