last word
Harry Boonin
DIVES DEEP INTO JEWISH HISTORY
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
Photo by Ruth Boonin
H arry Boonin majored in
Russian in college, but it
“wasn’t very important to
me,” he said.

Then he went to law school and
became a lawyer, but he didn’t love
practicing law.

Finally, in 1977 at age 40, he saw a
book on the table at his mother’s house
in Trenton called “Finding Our Fathers:
A Guidebook to Jewish Genealogy,”
by Dan Rottenberg. Boonin took the
book, drove home with his wife Ruth
and their kids, put the kids to bed and
started reading. He read until 3 a.m. —
then woke up early the next morning to
read some more.

He hasn’t stopped since.

Today, Boonin, who lives in
Warrington and is a member of
Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel
in Elkins Park, is a Jewish genealogist.

He founded the Jewish Genealogical
and Archival Society of Greater
Philadelphia in 1979 and grew it to
include more than 400 members.

He has written four books, includ-
ing one about “The Jewish Quarter of
Philadelphia,” and 250 scholarly arti-
cles. And in August, he received a
lifetime achievement award from the
International Association of Jewish
Genealogical Societies at its virtual
conference. “He was recognized for his pioneer-
ing role and over four decades of lead-
ership, scholarship and mentorship in
Jewish genealogy,” according to a news
release. “It’s much more important than the
law,” said Boonin, who retired from his
law practice three decades ago.

The 85-year-old wants to be clear.

His legal career went just fine, and he
enjoyed the people he worked with. But
once he discovered Rottenberg’s book,
he couldn’t stop thinking about Jewish
genealogy. Boonin liked the way Rottenberg,
a Philadelphia-based journalist who
worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer
and other publications, used research
to find out more about his family his-
tory. Boonin said the experience of
reading the book motivated him to
research his family history, a desire he
never had before.

In the late 1970s, he wrote a letter
to a Russian author who wrote about
the town where Boonin’s family orig-
inated. A year went by. Then one day,
the lawyer got home from the office to
find a letter on the table. His wife told
him it was from Russia.

The Russian professor had responded
in Polish with two or three pages trac-
ing Boonin’s family to 1804. Boonin
had to send it to his former Russian
teacher at Penn State University to get
it translated, but once he did, he started
reading the letter like he once read
Rottenberg’s book.

“I really got into it,” he said.

Boonin wrote what he described as
“a very short article” about this his-
tory for a magazine whose name now
escapes him. After that, the Jewish
Genealogical Society in New York con-
tacted Boonin about giving a talk.

A sizable audience showed up, and
while Boonin was “up there blabbing,”
as he remembered it, he looked down at
the front row and saw Rabbi Malcolm
Stern, “the father of Jewish genealogy
in America,” as Boonin described him.

The lawyer thought to himself that he
should be sitting in the front row while
Stern gave the talk.

But after the event ended, Stern
approached Boonin.

“He said three words I’ll never forget:
‘That was delicious,’” Boonin recalled.

“The words gave me so much confi-
dence.” Boonin
started the
Jewish Genealogical and Archival Society of
Greater Philadelphia and began doing
deeper research to produce longer arti-
cles. In 1989, he published an 8-10 page
article in a Jewish ancestry magazine
with about 3,000 readers. Over the next
decade, he wrote many more pieces
with similar depth.

He also published the first book
about Philadelphia’s Jewish quar-
ter, a part of history that he believes
should get more attention. The quar-
ter, which consisted of about 12-15
blocks between Spruce and Christian
streets and Second and Sixth streets,
came alive when Eastern European
Jews immigrated to the United States
between 1890 and 1910 to escape
antisemitism, Boonin said.

“We have more in the Jewish quarter
than any other city, leaving out New
York City,” he said.

Boonin has also written books about
Jewish boxers and his mother’s side of
the family and their immigration to the
U.S. He can still talk at length about
each topic, too, even years after finish-
ing the stories.

According to Boonin, one of Yankee
Stadium’s first big events after it opened
in 1923 was a fight between two Jews:
Benny Leonard and Lew Tendler. A
crowd of 58,000 showed up, including
Yankee legend Babe Ruth.

“He’s 85 years old, but he’s not stop-
ping,” Ruth Boonin said of her hus-
band. “He always wants to do more and
more.” JE
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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