The Panama Jewish Oral History Project Establishes a Permanent Home

For the last two years the Panama Jewish Oral History Project has had articles published in the KSI Annual Boletin, and this report is being written to make more congregants and friends of KSI better informed of the Project’s activities and to give an update of the recent establishment of the it’s work space within the KSI library.

By the way, this activity is an excellent example of many English and Spanish speaking congregation members partnering to preserve the history of Jewish settlement in Panama, of our congregation and the memories and stories of our members. And we are looking for more members and friends to join us as we grow the Project.

With of the leadership of Lyanne Lindo Wassermann and support of husband Barry, along with our valuable sponsors, the Oral History Project continues to make great strides in video recording interviews of our community’s elders along with scanning valuable documents and now with a physical presence having the ability to store and display  items of historical significance. 

This week, the Oral History Project completed the assembly of our bookcases, storage cabinets and the framing of two family trees for display which are of the descendants of Joshua Piza and of the Fidanque family.  Accompanying this report are photos of the assembled furniture and the framed family trees.

We are currently working on a project website in cooperation with the synagogue as it develops its own, looking for volunteers with information filing and cataloging skills and currently interviewing for a student intern to assist with translating documents and scanning.

Please let me know if you are interested in becoming a volunteer, contributing to the project and or have family trees and other valuable documents we can reproduce or scan and have as resource for genealogists and scholars.

Panama Jewish Oral History Project Work Space

If you are interested in becoming involved, please contact me at: robert.jacobviz@sbcglobal.net

Robert Jacobvitz

                                                        Fidanque Family Tree

Joshua Piza Family Tree