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Tracing your Roots

Sun, Jun 23

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Webinar

Tracing her family back 15 generations to the early 1500s in Spain & Portugal, Genie Milgrom was able to unravel the web of lies and deceit that her family had spun in order to survive. Here, she is joined by Georgina Garza and Dr. Drora Arussy to help you navigate the certificate process.

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Tracing your Roots
Tracing your Roots

Time & Location

Jun 23, 2024, 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Webinar

About the event

Tracing her family back 15 generations to the early 1500s in Spain and  Portugal, Genie Milgrom was able to unravel the web of lies and deceit  that her family had spun around themselves in order to survive the  Spanish Inquisition. This fascinating story brought her on a journey she  could have never imagined. It also led her to partner with Jewish Unity Through Diversity Institute and Reconectar to create the Certificate of  Sephardic Ancestry help others connect to their Sephardic heritage and  gain a greater appreciation of their family legacy.  

Here, she is  joined by Georgina Garza and Dr. Drora Arussy to help you navigate the  Certificate process and submit the research that you conduct. 

It  is recommended that you read Genie’s first book, "My 15 Grandmothers"  (https://tinyurl.com/15Grandmothers) where she takes the reader through  her journey – from growing up Catholic to finding her Crypto-Jewish  lineage and embracing the religion of her ancestors. Her new film, "The  Flower and the Stone," is now showing in film festivals around the  world.

About Genie and Georgina:

Genie Milgrom has authored several books including "My 15 Grandmothers,"  "How I Found my 15 Grandmothers," "Pyre to Fire, De la Pira al Fuego."  She was awarded the Latino Author Book Award as well as the Literary  Titan Book Award for several of the Books. The Books have been  translated to Yiddish and Farsi. Since 2010 she has been a global  speaker on the topic of the Jews of the Inquisition that remained in  Spain in hiding, including at AIPAC, the Knesset and the EU Parliament.  Genie was a past president of Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies at Colorado State University and Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Miami and is a currently a board member of Kulanu and Tarbut Sefarad in Barcelona. In 2015 she was hooded by Netanya Academic College in Israel for achievements in Study and research of Crypto Jewry and in 2018 she was awarded the Medal of the Four  Synagogues from Jerusalem, the highest accolade available on this research. For the  past nearly decade, she has spearheaded a global initiative to digitize  Inquisition documents. In 2020, organized a full curriculum of  learning for the Anusim of Latin America.

Originally from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Georgina Garza De Leon comes from the original Crypto-Jewish families arriving at Nuevo Reino De León. Descendant of Luis De Carvajal de la Cueva, Diego De Montemayor, Marcos Alonso de La Garza Y Falcón, and many other Crypto-Jews fleeing the inquisition. Her tree's prominent names are Leon, Garza, Gonzalez, Trevino, Cantu, Cano, Benavidez, and many more Sephardic last names.

She has a podcast and a group where she documents her return to Judaism. Loves reading the Torah and learning about Jewish law.

Georgina graduated from the University of North Texas with a master's in Spanish language and culture from Salamanca, Spain. She has a certificate as a genealogist and has helped many with the Spanish law of return. She hopes to return to Israel.

She works as a School Educational Diagnostician and helps many students with learning disabilities.

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Jewish Unity Through Diversity Institute is fiscally sponsored by SAMI - Sephardic American Mizrahi Initiative.

To learn more about SAMI go to www.samiglobal.org

© 2025 Jewish Unity Through Diversity Institute

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