The Weekly News Nosh – May 3, 2026

This Jewish heritage news digest is this week’s NewsNosh (The Weekly News Nosh) from L’Dor V’Dor Foundation—a curated set of links for anyone interested in Jewish family history, Jewish history, and Jewish heritage. This week’s NewsNosh Jewish heritage news digest includes ancestry search tools, Caucasus Jewish history, Holocaust memory, Jewish American heritage, and more.

Editor: Phil Goldfarb, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

This week’s news links:

1. Ancestry rolls out Searching with Full Text Search. Full Text Search lets you search every word in certain historical records on Ancestry, not just indexed fields like names, dates, and places. This helps you uncover details and connections that traditional searches may miss. Full Text Search unlocks those details by making all the words inside of documents searchable. Full Text Search helps you:
   1. Find hidden people mentioned in records, such as relatives, witnesses, neighbors, or associates
   2. Discover relationships described in documents, like heirs listed in wills or probate records
   3. Learn more about your ancestors’ lives, including occupations, land transactions, events, community ties
   4. Save time by searching the full text of records instead of browsing images page by page.

Read more from their blog: Searching with Full Text Search

2. Voter Lists from the Antoni Schneider Collection. Gesher Galicia announces the release of the first batch of voter records from the Schneider Collection Project, which are being extracted and indexed by our team stored at the Krakow National Archive. Read more here: Voter Lists from the Antoni Schneider Collection | Research Projects | Gesher Galicia
3. Fold3 Adds Free Arkansas WWI Discharge Records 1917-1919. Go to: Arkansas, WWI Discharge Records – Fold3
4. The Jews Who Rode with Daggers. For 1,500 years, a Jewish community lived in the Caucasus Mountains as warriors, horsemen, and clan fighters. Most Jews have never heard of them. Read their story from Aish: The Jews Who Rode with Daggers | Aish
5. Finland: When Jews fought alongside the Nazis. Nearly all of the Nordic country’s Jewish citizens survived World War II, and Jewish communal life was never dismantled. Read this interesting story from JNS: Finland: When Jews fought alongside the Nazis – Israel & Jewish News – JNS
6. The Ballerina of Auschwitz. Dr. Edith Eger offers keys to free ourselves from our own prisons of the mind. Read her story from Aish: The Ballerina of Auschwitz | Aish
7. The History of the Łódź Ghetto. The Łódź ghetto was established on 30 April 1940. It was the second-largest ghetto in German-occupied territory, and also the most isolated from its surroundings and other ghettos. Approximately 60,000 Jews were incarcerated there. Read the full story from Yad Vashem: Łódź Ghetto | The Holocaust: Key Topics
8. Yiddish street signs: Commemoration or marginalization? A “memory landscape” in Berlin’s former Yiddish-speaking neighborhood  revives the dream of Yiddish as an official minority language of Germany. Read the story from The Forward: Yiddish street signs: Commemoration or marginalization? – The Forward
9. Jews and Pickles: A New York Love Story. From Eastern European survival food to TikTok sensation, the pickle’s journey is really a Jewish story. Read more from Aish: Jews and Pickles: A New York Love Story | Aish
10. Sapiro v. Ford, or how to cut an antisemite down to size. A new documentary, Sapiro v. Ford: The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford is now out. The film chronicles the landmark defamation lawsuit brought in 1924 by Aaron Sapiro, a Jewish lawyer and farmers’ cooperative activist against one of the wealthiest and most influential Americans at that time. In all likelihood, Ford provided much of the Nazi party’s early financing and that Hitler first became exposed to global antisemitic conspiracy theories through the German translation of Ford’s International Jew. Ford was the only American mentioned by name in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Read more from The Times of Israel: The Blogs: Sapiro v. Ford, or how to cut an antisemite down to size | Menachem Rosensaft | The Times of Israel
11. The handwriting analysis that convicted Alfred Dreyfus is for sale. The dossier of Etienne Charavay shows a confused argument that the handwriting expert ultimately recanted. The false conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a captain in the French military, for treason against France in 1894 is remembered by historians as a flashpoint of antisemitism in modern history. It spread a renewed hatred and suspicion of Jews throughout French society. Read the story from The Forward: The handwriting analysis that convicted Alfred Dreyfus is for sale – The Forward
12. House lawmakers introduce bipartisan resolution marking Jewish American Heritage Month. “Few stories speak more clearly to the promise of America than the story of Jewish Americans,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick wrote. Read more from JNS: House lawmakers introduce bipartisan resolution marking Jewish American Heritage Month – Israel & Jewish News – JNS
13. The Jewish Roots of the Met Gala. Behind all the spectacle and glamour is a story that begins with two Jewish women, Irene Lewisohn and Aline Bernstein. Read the story from Hey Alma: The Jewish Roots of the Met Gala – Hey Alma
14. After a Maryland teacher’s death, her 200-piece Judaica collection finds new life in a Jewish museum. Nick Fox’s “Millennial Inheritance” Instagram account made the match. Read the story from JTA: After a Maryland teacher’s death, her 200-piece Judaica collection finds new life in a Jewish museum – Jewish Telegraphic Agency
15. D. Salinger asked publishers to remove references to his Jewish heritage, newly surfaced letters reveal. Salinger was the son of Sol, a cheese salesman (whose wares might have been kosher) and the grandson of a rabbi on his father’s side. “The Catcher in the Rye” could have had “that Jewish-Irish business” on its jacket, the letters show. Read the story from The Forward: J.D. Salinger asked publishers to remove references to his Jewish heritage, newly surfaced letters reveal – The Forward
16. An Indiana town had no Jewish cemetery. When its mayor died, it built one. Aurora had no Jewish cemetery in 1871. After Marcus Levy’s death, residents refused to send him away — and set out to consecrate ground and raise a monument. Read the story from The Forward: Indiana town builds Jewish cemetery for mayor – The Forward

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About The Weekly News Nosh

The Weekly News Nosh (NewsNosh) is the L’Dor V’Dor Foundation’s weekly Jewish heritage news digest—a curated set of links for anyone interested in Jewish family history, Jewish history, and Jewish heritage. NewsNosh is published on Sundays and shared on our website and social media platforms. “A Family Without The Understanding Of Their Past History, Foundation And Ethnicity Is Like A Tree Without Roots.” Subscribe to receive NewsNosh every Sunday, directly in your inbox. Browse past issues of our Jewish heritage news digest in the NewsNosh archive.