Monday, November 10, 2008

To all members of the Rappaport Clan, wherever you are.

THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF THE RAPAPORT FAMILY
21 Shmuel Hanagid St. Jerusalem 945 92, Israel. Tel: 02 - 6234 138.
email: chanrapaport@gmail.com

Dears,                                                                                  March of 2011
Since the establishment of the "Rappaport Center" * in 1990, we have communicated ** with many among you.
We would like now to enlarge the circle of participants in our Institute and therefore wish to tell you a little about the plan of work at our Research Center.

The work would culminate in three parts (a few volumes each) of the Rapaport Book. This, at the end of collection, analysis and research, the time of which is difficult to estimate now. We already have, in draft form, Seven volumes.

The first would be the part of Biographies and the Genealogical relationships between the Rapaports and their past ancestors since the years 1380- 1400. {The period for which we have scientific proof }
The second part would contain all the information about the learned books and articles, as well as the artistic creations of the members of the Rapaport Family - in the form of plays, paintings, sculptures, artistic designs, films, music, dance and any other form of creativity.
The third and culminating part would contain the findings of the study, which we are conducting:
"On the Development of the Jewish Intellectual Class – in the last Millennium".

The study is based, partially, on the books and the scientific and learned articles which have been written by Rapaport family members.
The preliminary work shows that we can count 6815 books in different scientific fields. The number of scientific and learned articles, published only in the last few years, amounts to 7954 publications. This is only part of the data, being collected about and around the Rapaports and related Families.

The study directed our interest, to the genealogy and biographies of all the Jewish Families.
If our goals find roads into your hearts, we would hope and highly appreciate receiving from you an updated version of your illustrious family tree with short biographies attached to each person***.
The data which you might provide, together with short biographical stories about everybody included, by marriage in the family, would not only facilitate the finding of links between your family and the wide trunk and branches of the Jewish People, but could tell future generations - everything about the people who are included in our research project - mentioned above.

With best wishes for health and peace on all mankind,
Yours, Dr. Chanan Rapaport ==========================================
* Founders:
President, Dr. Paul Jacobi, Jerusalem, Israel. (Deceased).
Director – General, Dr. Chanan Rapaport, Jerusalem, Israel.
Treasurer, Prof. Zvi Rapoport, Hebrew University.
Head – Auditing Comm. Ret. Judge Avraham Ben Hador, Jerusalem. 
Auditing Committee, Mrs. Miriam Boleh, Jerusalem, Israel.
Prof. Leonard Lerman. Mass. Inst. of Technology - M.I.T
Prof. Amos Rapoport, University. of Wisconsin.
Lawyer Dov Rapaport, Haifa, Israel.
Dr. Judith Rapaport, Jerusalem, Israel.
Prof. Lisa Steiner. Mass. Inst. of Technology -M.I.T

The "Center" is a Non-profit Research Institute registered, according to
law, with the Registrars of the Israeli Ministries of Justice and that of Finance.
All its documents, periodical reports and the balance sheets are submitted, annually, to those Registrars who evaluates them in order to decide whether to approve its activities and grant it with the "Certificate of Proper Management". The "Center" has just received the "Certificate of Proper Management" for the forthcoming year.
Contributions to the Center are also recognized by the U.S. Internal
Revenue Service, as Tax Deductible, through the P.E.F. - Israel Endowment Funds.

** We are in the process of building our Website. In order to facilitate an easy and quick channel for communication, we would highly appreciate
having your email address for that purpose.

*** Information Needed for a Family Tree:
If you have a wider and more complete family tree (which includes:
The full name: in Hebrew and Foreign languageDates: birth, marriage, wandering and death, Places, as well as Education,
Occupations, Business, Public offices, Honorary titles and Publications.
We shall be very happy to receive it, even in a rough draft.

It is very important to receive the above mentioned details, about every body, as well as a every printed reference to him/her in a book, or article – by name and author, publisher , year of publication, page etc.

We wish to impose upon you the importance of every detail, and even a minute one, which identifies the name in a family tree. Without the dates of birth, marriage and death, or at least the places (town and state) of the birth and death, it would be very difficult to identify, e.g., that one Jacob Horowitz is the same as, or different from, another Jacob Horowitz who is mentioned in a book or on the branch of the Horowitz family tree.

The proper identification of the two Jacob Horowitzes, mentioned above, is possible only when we hear that the first one came from Pressburg, (Slovakia of today) and died in 1812, while the second one came from Bialistok in Poland and died in 1755.
Thus, only the information, even if partial, of dates, spouses, places, education, professions and offices, enables us to
identify between two people with the same name.

Please, help yourselves and us – Many thanks