Eleanor Reissa (US/DE; multi-disciplinary creator/performer)

is an actor/singer/playwright/author/director/choreographer in English and Yiddish – her first language.

She currently plays Lilka Zweifler, the matriarch, in the highly acclaimed German mini-series Die Zweiflers. She has appeared in numerous productions on HBO and Netflix, among others, and she is a Tony Award-nominated Broadway director for Those Were The Days. She recently performed on Broadway in Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s play Indecent.

Eleanor has been at the forefront of Yiddish performing arts in many roles for decades, including as co-artistic director of the Folksbiene Theater in New York. She has sung in festivals around the world, including the Migrations Festival: A Celebration of Yiddish Music at Carnegie Hall, which she co-wrote and directed. Her singing career includes countless collaborations with other musicians; in recent decades, Frank London has become her primary collaborator.

A Brooklyn born-and-bred daughter of Holocaust fighters, her moving memoir, THE LETTERS PROJECT: A Daughter’s Journey, is available both in print and as an audio book. She is the host of the Yale University/Fortunoff Video Archive podcast Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust, in its third season.

Photo: Adrian Buckmaster