subject: How to Find Your Relatives in Israel [print this page] How to Find Your Relatives in Israel How to Find Your Relatives in Israel
While there are many resources available on the internet, your best first stop is Israel Book Phone. This is Israel's White Pages in English. Jewish people from abroad who don't happen to know Hebrew will find it particularly useful. It includes many variations of spelling for both first and last names, and so you maximize your chances of finding your relatives. Many people have found their distant relatives and friends using the Israel Phone Book. Even new immigrants (Olim) from English-speaking countries like USA, Canada, England, South America and Australia have made good use of the site.
You might be able to track down "Societies" of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from the cities that you ancestor's left in Europe (or elsewhere, for that matter).
Even if these societies don't exist anymore, most of them have published one or more "Yizkor" books which, among other things, list the names of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. There often include commemorations by those who survived, and so you can possibly find them.
If the society of the town or towns of your grand parents and great grand parents do exist, often they have websites with web forums. You can write a message asking people if they know of anyone who is the descendant of your grand parents. And they also frequently offer the phone number of the leaders of the societies and they are usually very kind and helpful.
There are many Genealogy sites out there like MyHeritage and Ancestor and so you would definitely want to give them a try too.
