KHANE (ELEANOR, CHANA) GORDON-MLOTEK

KHANE (ELEANOR, CHANA) GORDON-MLOTEK (April 9, 1922-November 4, 2013)

            The wife of Yosl (Joseph) Mlotek, she was born in New York and graduated from Hunter College and the Jewish Middle School of the “Sholem Aleichem Institute” in New York.  In 1948 she received a stipend from YIVO to take part in the courses in Yiddish linguistics and folklore at UCLA, led by Dr. Max Weinreich.  Over the years 1944-1951, she was secretary to the director of scholarship at YIVO in New York.  In 1948 she was a co-founder of the “Y. L. Cahan Folklore Club” at YIVO.  In 1945 she published her first piece in Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) in New York, a work concerned with Jewish folksong.  She later published in Yugnt-ruf (Voice of youth) and The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Yiddish Language, Folklore and Literature, vol. 3, published on the 200^th anniversary of the founding of Columbia University in New York and edited by Uriel Weinreich.  She served on the editorial board of Yidisher folklor (Jewish folklore).  She contributed to the second volume of Yivo-biblyografye (YIVO bibliography).  Later books include: Yontefdike teg, liderbukh far di yidishe yontoyvim (Holiday days, songbook for the Jewish holidays) (New York, 1972), 105 pp., with Malke Gotlib; Mir trogn a gezang, yidishe arbeter un folks-lider (We’re carrying a tune, Jewish labor and folk songs) (New York: Workmen’s Circle, 1972), 6 + 201 pp., second edition (1977); Perl fun der yidisher poezye (Pearls of Yiddish poetry) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1974), 564 pp., with Y. Mlotek.  She died in the Bronx, New York.

With Michael Tilson Thomas

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 376.]