Officers & Additional Leadership: July 2024 - June 2025

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Ellen Beller - President

Ellen was born and raised on the Jersey Shore. She came to Denver in 1973 to attend the University of Denver. Graduating with a BSBA in Finance she became the first woman sales person for Samsonite Luggage. At 34 she went back to school to get a design degree as she had been painting since grammar school. She now works in glass. Having lost her mother as a child she knew very little about her family. Her parents were only children so there was no one to ask. A lover of history and a voracious reader researching her genealogy was a natural progression.   Ellen is researching Throne, Lithuania • Claster/ Klajstor,  Panevezys Lithuania • Beller, Kolbuszowa and Krakow Poland • Rabinowicz, Krakow Poland • Rozli/ Reki Szyja • Janczalek, Krakow  •  Bendytz, Krakow Adelung, Krakow • Lipman Adelung, Krakow • Eschelbach, Bavaria • Weckert, Bavaria • Herschfeld, Germany • Borchard, Prussia • Perel/Morel, Krakow • Arndt, Baden-Wurttemberg Germany • Stein, Baden • Steinhardt, Flonheim Rhineland Palatine German •  Levi, Herrnsheim Rhineland Palatinate German • Sanders, Germany • Levy, Germany • Hirsch, Mandel Germany • Marx, Zeltingen Rachtig • Baer/Baehr, Wiesbaden Germany • Samuel, Bad Kreuznach Germany • Gumbel,  Wiesbaden Germany, and Loewy, Germany

Brad Friedman - Membership VP

Brad Friedman, Founder & President of The Friedman Group, LLC is a Denver native and “Recovering Attorney.”  Drawing on his lifetime of work with Attorneys, CPAs, Financial Services Providers and Business Owners, Brad formed The Friedman Group to help professionals and businesses generate leads and revenue by harnessing the power of the Internet and Social Media. Brad has extensive experience working with non-profits and spent 8 years as the Executive Director of The Jewish Community Foundation.

Judy Petersen - Programming VP

Judy became interested in family history as a 12 year old listening to her grandfather's stories of growing up in Russia.  She began actively researching after the death of her paternal grandparents and uncle, to find cousins and restore a sense of extended family to her father.  One thing led to another, and now Judy has 4 Kehillalinks projects on JewishGen, family trees on MyHeritage and Geni, as well as a town-wide project for her ancestral town of Körmend, Hungary, on Geni.  She has found relatives in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Hungary, Croatia, Israel, Argentina, and Italy.  She also does an annual ""roots project"" with the 5th graders in her synagogue's synagogue's Religious School. Active on several Facebook genealogy sites, she frequently is able to assist others with their research in the former Austro-Hungarian empire.  Since so much of genealogy is networking, one way Judy accomplishes this is by transcribing records.  She has transcribed and indexed records for over 20 years, including multiple JewishGen projects for the All Hungary Database and the Yizkor Book project, as well as for ancestry.com and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Outside of genealogy, she is a retired Physical Therapist, a retired music paraprofessional and an active crochet-er, reader and baker.  She is very happy to share her experiences transcribing and encourages everyone to become volunteer transcribers.

Loren Ginsburg - Secretary

I am almost a third generation Denverite (though I grew up in Lakewood.) My grandparents all came to Denver as children or young adults. Except for college and Law School, I have lived here my whole life. I have spent 40 years as a lawyer in private general practice. Besides general volunteering, my involvement with Jewish Communal life includes terms on the boards of the RMJHS and Temple Sinai. I also taught religious school at Temple Sinai for 15 years.

Elliot Cohen - Treasurer

Dr. Elliot Cohen has practiced general psychiatry in Colorado Springs for forty years and recently has retired. He was born in Brrooklyn Jewish hospital and raised in Silver Spring Maryland. He matriculated at the University of Maryland  for his undergraduate degree in psychology, and his medical degree at the Baltimore campus of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. After medical school and an internship in Honolulu, Hawaii he served as a general medical officer in the U.S. Navy for six years, followed by seven years as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army which brought him to Ft. Carson in Colorado. His passion for genealogy began in 1977, while serving in Europe, he visited his ancestral village in Checiny, Poland. In addition, he has supported the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass. for twenty five years, in memory of the mother tongue of his ancestors.

Leonard Roth - Director at Large

Leonard was born, raised and educated in Montreal, Canada. He attended both Concordia and McGill Universities and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in management and accounting, and is also a CPA. Leonard was elected as a Member of the Board of Accountants for the Province of Quebec for over 25 years and served on many committees. He was awarded a life membership in Quebec and a Fellow for CPA Canada. Leonard’s interest in genealogy began in 1984. He is currently tracing his great-great grandfather’s beginnings. He found a Liverpool newspaper article dated August, 1905 mentioning that a 107-year old Romanian is returning from visiting his 3 sons in Montreal and is heading to Jerusalem “to spend the rest of his days”. However in transit, he passed away and is buried in Marseilles, France. In 1996, Leonard became one of the founding members of the Jewish Genealogical Society (JGS) in Montreal and also held the treasurer position for several years. Leonard maintained a public accounting practice and property management firm for HOAs during his career. He was also involved in several small business ventures. Leonard has been married to Anna Gold since 1969. They have two children, both living in Denver.

Gail Marcus - Past President

Gail Marcus is a second generation Coloradan who traces her maternal family to the Cotopaxi Colony and her paternal family to JCRS.  She served as President of JGSCO from 2013 - 2015 and continues to serve on the board as a past president.  Gail is a retired French teacher who sits on the North Side High School Alumni Association Board as vice-president and is a precinct organizer for the Denver Democrats.

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Randy Getz - Webmaster

Randy has been researching his family on and off for 20 years, kick-started by a relative who was able to collate over 1000 family members before information was available on the Internet into a 2-inch binder of printed pages. Randy is working hard to understand his family's "vertical genealogy" (ancestors) as well as "horizontal genealogy" (living relatives). The latter has led to many new relationships around the world in both his and his wife's families.

For general information about JGSCO, please email the general mailbox