Q. Who is responsible for the JBAT website and project?
A. JBAT – Guide to the Archives of Jewish Bukovina And Transylvania – is an initiative of the Leo Baeck Institute New York/Berlin, with the support of the Yerusha Project of the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe. You may contact the project director, Julie Dawson, at jbat [at] lbi.org with specific questions.
Q. I found a catalogue entry which looks interesting but I can’t find the document itself. Where is it?
A. The JBAT project aims to provide an online catalogue of archival sources available for study in Romania. With very few exceptions (documents from Medias, some civil records from Sibiu), the project is NOT a digitization project and therefore the documents listed in the catalogue are not available to be viewed online. In order to view them one will need to consult the archival repository listed in the entry under “Rights Holder.”
Q. My family is from Transylvania/Bukovina/Romania, but their names don’t come up when I search for them in the search browser – how do I find records about them?
A. The JBAT catalogue does not contain a name index – there are thousands and thousands of names in the documents which we have surveyed and it would take years to index all of them. If you know the town from which your family comes, you can search for documents specifically within that town (go to TOWN -> Browse All) and see whether there are civil records from the period when your family members were born/married/died. In order to view the document itself, you will need to either visit the archive listed in the entry under “Rights Holder” or contact the archive to see whether they can send you extracts from the register.
Q. How long will the JBAT project last?
A. The JBAT field work was carried out from 2013-2019. The catalogue will continue to be updated through 2020. Corrections and additions will always be possible.
Q. I am interested in a town in Transylvania that isn’t listed on the JBAT website – will you be adding other towns/localities in the future?
A. The last major update (2019/2020) will include finding aids for documents held by the Jewish communities of Arad, Sighet, Satu Mare, Caransebeș, and Deva. The regional branches of the National Archives for these towns and/or their surrounding counties were not surveyed by the Leo Baeck Institute. There may, however, be survey information for these counties on the Yerusha website, due to launch in late 2020.
Q. I am interested in the region of northern Bukovina, today in Ukraine, but there isn’t much information about those towns. Why?
A. The JBAT survey covers only southern Bukovina, the part of Bukovina in Romania today. The catalogue contains several entries of collections or material about northern Bukovina (in Ukraine) because this material is held by archival repositories in Romania (Suceava or Bucharest). There are currently no plans to survey the material held by archival repositories in Chernivtsi (Czernowitz, Cernăuți).
Q. I am a researcher and know of relevant collections and material in Romania which is not included in this catalogue or I have found errors in the catalogue. How can I share this information?
A. Wonderful! Please contact the JBAT project director at jbat [at] lbi.org with the information and we will work to incorporate the data into the database.