HomeTJGS Officers

TJGS Officers

2021 Triangle JGS Executive Committee

PRESIDENT: Barbara Freedman grew up in Philadelphia, and has lived in the Research Triangle area since 1972. She received an A.B. cum laude from Bryn Mawr College and an M.S. in library science from Drexel University. After a career at Burroughs Wellcome Co., she "retired" to a career of family and volunteering. Barbara has been active in the Raleigh Jewish community for many years, and has served as president of Temple Beth Or. She is a member of the Temple Beth Or board, and also on the board of the Raleigh Hebrew Cemetery. Barbara and her husband Mitch have two sons and three grandchildren. Her family tree is for them. Barbara has served on the TJGS Board.

VICE-PRESIDENT: Jarrett Ross began researching his own family history in 2009 while finishing his undergraduate degree. Since then he has built his own personal tree with over 7000 people, successfully connected with thousands of relatives all over the World, and has helped build hundreds of trees for people of varying ancestral backgrounds. Jarrett has found a specialty in Sephardic Jewish research with an emphasis on the Dutch Sephardim. He also specializes in Jewish Agricultural Societies of Southern New Jersey, Ashkenazi Jews, Jews in America, and Jews in the UK. Along with his specialties Jarrett also has extensive experience with African-American ancestry, German-American ancestry, Italian-American ancestry, English ancestry, and Genetic Genealogy. Jarrett writes a blog called "Sephardic Genealogy", which focuses on his Sephardic genealogy research. He also has a vlog called "GeneaVlogger" where Jarrett talks about his research, gives genealogy tips, interviews other genealogists, and shows different aspects of working in genealogy.

SECRETARY: position open
Acting Secretary: Deborah Long
See bio below.

TREASURER: David Zendels was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He is a first generation American. David received his BME from Cooper Union in 1959 and his MBA from the University of Bridgeport in 1966. He worked 9 years for GE and after that he was employed for 13 years by Huyck Corporation. He started at Huyck in manufacturing, switched to finance, and rose to be the corporate treasurer. Huyck moved their corporate office to Wake Forest in 1973 and David and his family have lived in Raleigh for the past 45 years. He has been active in the Jewish community, serving as chair of Jewish Federated Charities, Israel Bonds, president of Beth Meyer Synagogue and board member of the Raleigh Hebrew Cemetery. He has also volunteered for many activities in the general Raleigh community. David became interested in family genealogy in 1992 when Lee Iacocca started The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. He started by contacting his 15 first cousins to gather family information and now has over 1000 names on his family tree. David has served as TJGS Treasurer for more than five years.

FOUNDER AND MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR: Deborah Long was born in Chicago and attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and received her master’s degree at UI-Chicago. She moved to South Florida in the 1970s, taught English as well as real estate license law, and earned her doctorate in adult education. She moved to Chapel Hill in 1996 with her IBM engineer husband and daughter. She is currently a teacher on a variety of real estate subjects. She has been researching her family’s Holocaust story since she was 10 years old, but her efforts really took off in 2009 with trips to her ancestral villages in Poland and Hungary. She was able to locate long-lost cousins in Sweden, Hungary, Canada and Israel, and continues to search for more relatives. She is the founder of the TJGS and served as its president from 2013-2014.

DIRECTOR AND CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER: Mike Kalt was born in Detroit and is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. He also holds a PhD in Political Science from UNC-Chapel Hill. Mike retired from SAS Institute after a 31-year career as a Technical Support Manager and Instructor. He has been a genealogy buff since 1984, and has been actively involved as a volunteer with JewishGen since the mid-1990's, working on JewishGen's Yizkor Book project and Holocaust data base. He also maintains the town pages for Stryj and Grodek Jagiellonski for JewishGen's KehilaLinks project. In 2001, he traveled to Poland and Ukraine to visit his ancestral shtetls. Mike served as president in 2015 through 2017.

DIRECTOR AND PARLIAMENTARIAN: Jane Green was born and raised in New York and went to school in Providence, RI and Atlanta, GA. She then lived in Washington, DC before returning to New York City, then lived in Connecticut for 20 years before moving to North Carolina twelve years ago. Jane practiced law in GA, DC and NY. More recently, Jane has worked as a freelance journalist, as a marketing director for a large law firm, and as a consultant. Actively involved in numerous volunteer charitable and civic organizations over the years, she acted an advocate for the Simsbury, CT Democratic Party on a number of local and national political issues, culminating in her election to and service on its planning and zoning commission. Jane currently sits on the board of directors of Carolina Ballet. Her interest in genealogy stems in part from a lack of knowledge about her family history beyond her parents other than names and a few special photographs of great-grandparents. She is intrigued by her resemblance to those ancestors and now wants to learn more. Jane has served as a TJGS director since the group’s founding.

DIRECTOR: Albert Gershman was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and is a graduate of the City College of New York. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. Albert has held many positions including 26 years as principal engineer of research and development for Keyspan Energy. He is a past president of ENTELEC, The Energy Telecommunications and Electrical Association. He is currently the owner of XIS Controls, a supplier of replacement parts for access control equipment. At age 16 (1962), Albert created a 188-person tree of known individuals. He returned to this tree some 30 years late and today, it has almost 3600 individuals. Albert has discovered numerous family stories, including a host of Holocaust survivors. Albert Lives in Fuquay-Varina with his wife Nadine and a bunch of cats. He enjoys listening to his wife sing when she performs as a member of the North Carolina Master Chorale. They are members of Beth Shalom in Cary.

DIRECTOR: Stan Levine was born in in New Jersey and lived there for over 50 years. He received a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering, his master’s degree in physics, and his PhD in engineering management. He spent most of his career working for the Department of Defense. He, his wife, and their daughter moved to Virginia where he went to work in the Pentagon for about 12 years where he received the top three government civilian service awards. He and his wife then moved to Cary, North Carolina about 8 years ago. Stan, with the help of a cousin, has discovered many relatives and even some from his adopted mother’s birth parent’s side.

DIRECTOR: Ava Nackman was born and raised in northern New Jersey. She received an Sc. B. in Aquatic Biology from Brown University and a masters from Duke University before getting her MBA at UNC-CH. She and her husband, Lee, lived for many years in Westchester County, New York, where both worked for IBM. Ava retired from work outside the home in 1987 and devoted herself to raising their three wonderful children, as well as taking on a wide variety of volunteer roles in her community. Lee’s job with IBM brought them to North Carolina in 2000, and they also spent a number of years in the Seattle and San Francisco areas. Upon retirement, they gladly returned to Chapel Hill, which they view as one of the best places to live in the country!

Ava has loved the “private eye” and historical aspects of genealogy since she was a teenager, long before it gained huge popularity and moved online. In fact, she once managed, many years ago, to get herself locked in the North Carolina Genealogy Room when the librarian closing up missed her scrolling through microfilms in a back cubby! Ava served for several years as the treasurer for the Durham-Orange Genealogical Society. She has completed the now defunct but extensive 16 Part NGS home study course on American Genealogy, as well as JewishGen’s Intermediate Genetic Genealogy course. Her family is partly from Italy and partly from several Southern states (sometimes pre-dating statehood), and, more recently, she has begun to explore Lee’s Eastern European Jewish ancestry.