The next IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be taking place July 6-10, 2015 in Jerusalem, Israel. It is the 35th conference, the first having been held in 1981 in New York City, and it is the 4th conference to be held in Jerusalem.

The conference will be taking place in the Ramada Jerusalem Hotel, not far from the entrance to the city (the same location as the 2004 conference). Before the conference, there will be a program on Shabbat (starting Friday July 3 and Saturday July 4) for those interested, and a travel day on Sunday (July 5) before the conference starts (on Monday).

The conference website is now up, and they are accepting registrations for those outside of Israel (registration for residents of Israel is coming soon). There is an early-bird discount for those who register up until April 14, 2015.

For those interested in speaking, they are now accepting proposals. You can propose a lecture (45 minutes), workshop (105 minutes in the computer lab), or panel discussion (105 minutes with up to 5 people on a single topic). Proposals must be submitted via the web site. Note that in my experience the system for submitting papers does not work in Safari on a Mac – use Chrome or Firefox instead. You can submit your proposal by going to the Speaker Service Center page on the web site, and filling out the form. Lectures can be in English, Hebrew or French.

The information you need to provide when filling out the form includes:

• Full name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number of presenter(s)(If a panel proposal, details for each panelist are required)
• Brief biographical sketch – (up to 50 words)
• Summary of recent presentation experience (up to 150 words)
• Title of presentation (up to 15 words)
• Presentation type (lecture, workshop, or panel)
• Brief description of the presentation (up to 150 words)
• Audience skill level (beginner, intermediate, advanced or all)
• Preferred language of delivery (English, Hebrew, French)

For some reason, it seems you must finish your proposal within about 20 minutes of starting it, or it will log you out, and your submission will be lost. As such I suggest figuring out what you’re going to write for each of the above entries in advance, and just paste each entry in when you open up the form.

Each speaker can submit up to five proposals, and a maximum of three proposals will be accepted per speaker. For more details on speaking, see the Call for Papers on the conference web site.