Yaffa Eliach (1937–2016)
Author of Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust
About the Author
Yaffa Eliach was born Yaffa Sonenson in Eishyshok, Lithuania on May 31, 1937. Her family went into hiding in 1941 and managed to survive until the area's liberation in July 1944. After World War II, she traveled to Palestine with an uncle and eventually reunited with her father and brother. She show more immigrated to the United States in 1954 and received a doctorate from the City University of New York in 1973. She dedicated her life to the study and memorialization of the Holocaust and its victims. She worked as a professor of history and literature in the department of Judaic studies at Brooklyn College and founded the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn. She collected hundreds of photographs from the shtetl where she was born. Some 1,500 photographs were selected for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Tower of Faces, where they are arranged in a narrow chasm that visitors walk through. She also wrote several books including Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust and There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok. She died after a long illness on November 8, 2016 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Unattributed photo at Shtetl Foundation
Works by Yaffa Eliach
There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok (1998) 453 copies, 3 reviews
Associated Works
Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum (1995) — Contributor — 191 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Sonenson, Yaffa (birth name)
- Birthdate
- 1937-05-31
- Date of death
- 2016-11-08
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Brooklyn College (MA|History|1969)
City College of New York (PhD|History|1973) - Occupations
- historian
university professor
memoirist - Organizations
- Center for Holocaust Studies (founder)
Shtetl Foundation (president ∙ founder)
Brooklyn College (professor - history & literature) - Awards and honors
- Holocaust Humanitarian Award (2001)
Eternal Flame Award (1999)
CBS Woman of the Year (1995)
Guggenheim Fellowship (1987) - Short biography
- Yaffa Eliach, née Sonenson, was born to a Jewish family in the shtetl of Eishyshok near Vilnius (present-day Eišiškės, Lithuania). During the Nazi Occupation of World War II, she and her family hid in various places in the area. Her mother and a brother were killed in 1944 during fighting between the Red Army/NKVD and the Polish Home Army. After the war, she went to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1946, emigrating to the USA in 1954 and settling in New York. She married David Eliach, a high school teacher and principal, with whom she had two children. She earned her BA and MA degrees from Brooklyn College, and a Ph.D. in 1973 from the City University of New York in Russian intellectual history. She became a professor of history and literature in the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, and founded and served as director of the Center for Holocaust Studies in Brooklyn. P
- Nationality
- Lithuania (birth)
USA - Birthplace
- Eisiskes, Lithuania
aka Eishyshok - Places of residence
- Eisiskes, Lithuania
British Mandate of Palestine
New York, New York, USA - Place of death
- Manhattan, New York, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Eisiskes, Lithuania
Members
Reviews
A detailed, meticulously researched, and sobering account of one village's rich history and heritage and ultimate destruction in the Holocaust. Has many interesting individuals coupled with photographs and is a book that has a strong impact on any reader regardless of background. The compelling interest and life's work of the author. Long narrative, but never seems so because of the subject and the author's skill. Have read the twice.
Eliach's Nine century saga of Eastern European Jewish life is richer and fuller than any other written.
Very nice, interesting, full of warmth, authentic!!
BUY IT!!!!!
BUY IT!!!!!
"An important work of scholarship and a sudden clear window onto the heretofore sealed world of the Hasidic reaction to the Holocaust. Its true stories and fanciful miracle tales are a profound and often poignant insight into the souls of those who suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazis and who managed somehow to use that very suffering as the raw material for their renewed lives." Chiam Potok From back cover of the book.
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Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 7
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 947
- Popularity
- #27,151
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 7
- ISBNs
- 14
- Languages
- 3
- Favorited
- 2