From Our Webmaster

Welcome to the new and upgraded website of the World Society of Częstochowa Jews and Their Descendants!

Our original website went online in mid-2004 following our First Reunion in April 2004 and during which our World Society was formed. Since then, the website has undergone a minor facelift but, with the advent of more advanced website, multi-platform and multimedia technology, it was really time to take advantage of these advancements and to develop an entirely new website.

Our Facebook group came into being in December 2009. Since then, our Częstochowa landsleit have been posting on that more and more and, as a result, have been using our Yahoo email group less and less – to the point that it is being used very rarely. So, with our new website going online and being linked to our Facebook group, it has been decided to close down the Yahoo email group. For fourteen years, it has served us well, but the time had come to recognise that it has outlived its usefulness.

In putting this new website online, I’d like to draw a few of its new features to your attention:

• The top left-hand corner now features the ability to instantly translate everything from English into either Polish or Hebrew.
• The top right-hand corner now features the ability to search the entire website for specific text (the magnifying-glass symbol). Next to that are two other symbols – the envelope symbol which will allow you to email me directly and the house symbol which will return you to the website’s home page.
• Older News items will no longer be deleted. They will be archived and will remain accessible irrespective of how long ago they were posted.
• Notifications of new material on this website will be automatically posted onto our Facebook group with a link back to the relevant part of the website itself.
• When future Reunions or other events are organised, you will be able to register for these directly through this website.

In putting our new website online, I have also added a new section – YIZKOR (MEMORIAL) BOOKS. You can access it via the HISTORY item on the main menu.

But that’s not all – we have now added ANOTHER new section to our website!

With the help of our friends at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and the resources of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, we have now added a section devoted to the CZĘSTOCHOWA RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS. These people are heroes and they should rightfully be honoured here. You can access this section also via the HISTORY item on the main menu.

Finally, I’d like to thank our website programmer Viv Rotstein for her work in setting up the structure of our new website and for her patience, both now and ongoing, in teaching me how to use it all.

I hope that everyone likes our new web home. As always, I welcome comments and suggestions which can be emailed to me by using the envelope symbol in the top right-hand corner of any page on the website.

Enjoy!