The half-Jewish organization in Europe is Doppel Halb (Double Half): They are in Germany and have a website in German and English.

http://www.doppelhalb.de/english.html

They are having a conference soon. If you attend it, you could meet other patrilineal Jews.

If you would like to contact Humanistic Jews in Europe, you may wish to contact their US umbrella organization:

http://www.shj.org/CongList.htm

The US Humanistic Jews used to have some European havurahs (study, socializing, prayer/meditation) groups. Those groups may be independent of them now, and their former US headquarters could put you in touch with them.

If you would like to become a contact person for the Humanistic Jews in Europe, I’m sure their American branch would be delighted to hear from you.

We are aware that many European Jewish groups don’t regard patrilineals as Jewish or having any claim to Jewish identity. We have written letters to the editor to British newspapers and magazines when the issue comes up, protesting negative comments by Jewish groups.

We also spend a lot of time leaving protests in Israeli Jewish newspapers against comments that speak negatively of half-Jewish people.

In other European countries we face a language barrier, but if you see an article and would like us to protest it, please send it to me.

Cordially,
Robin

Cordially,
Robin

You may wish to contact the synagogue where she converted — they may still have records. If her rabbi left his papers to a library or college research center or a Jewish archive, you might find her conversion listed among his other activities in those papers. He might have left a diary of his daily activities as a rabbi.

You can also go to the cemetery where she was buried, if you know it, and take a photo of her tombstone, which should have some Hebrew on it or other indications that she converted to Judaism. If she was buried in a Jewish cemetery, she would like have had to convert first in that era.

If you have inherited any family Bibles, it might be mentioned in the family records section. Also look for references to her conversion in family diaries and letters. Review any surviving photo albums for pictures of her in Jewish contexts.

If she had a conversion certificate of some type, it might be stored with other family papers. Have your relatives search all collections of family papers.

If all else fails, write down every family member’s recollections on this subject in a computer file or on a piece of paper, and see if the assembled recollections contain any clues to more information.

You can also contact any major Jewish organizations that she might have joined and ask if she is listed in their records as a donor or member.

Best of luck on your search!

Cordially,
Robin

You can subscribe to our free monthly email newsletter by going to the upper right and corner of this web page, where it says, “Email subscription” and click on the “Sign me up!” link.

You will then be asked to input your email address, and then to reply to an email sent to you that will ask you to confirm that you want to subscribe.

Then you are a subscriber. I can’t personally subscribe you, because WordPress software requires that individuals do it. This is to prevent spamming.

Regarding a conference, I would like to see at least 500 people subscribed to our email newsletter — maybe 1,000 — before we undertake that project. Right now we have 94 subscribers, who have signed up since we activated this new website last July.

(There were more on our old website, but we had to give that website up because it was technologically way behind the times. So we are rebuilding our subscribers.)

Since internet subscriptions generally increase in rate — they tend to jump once a critical point is reached — I am assuming that we will have enough subscribers for a conference within five years.

Cordially,
Robin

I appreciate your offer of help for a national gathering. Perhaps within the next decade it will be possible. If you are subscribed to our email newsletter, you would hear about any initial planning stages or calls for ideas, and I would welcome your help at that time.

Ideally, it would be done in coalition with other half-Jewish groups that exist. But it is several years down the road.

Cordially,
Robin