Israeli-born Granddaughter and Daughter of Holocaust Survivors

Shares the history of her grandmother,who survived two death camps, and her seven-year-old father who was hidden by Christians

Tamar shares the history of the strength, bravery, and hope of her grandmother Margit and her father Ivan and of the ordinary people who chose to help them survive the Holocaust. When Margit and six-year-old Ivan were in a forced labor camp their lives were saved by a man who risked his life to get them removed from a death camp transport. Ivan was then smuggled out of the camp and three different Christians in Slovakia hid him at great risk to themselves. Margit was sent to Ravensbruck and Bergen-Belsen death camps and was liberated when she was gravely ill and wounded. Ivan’s father, grandparents, and many other family members were murdered by the Nazis. After the Holocaust Margit and Ivan started a new life in Israel. Ivan met and married Tamar’s mother Esther, whose parents survived the Holocaust by escaping Nazi Germany and helped found Nahariya, Israel.

She hopes to inspire the realization that your choices matter and contribute to history, and that history is the sum of choices made by ordinary people individually and as part of groups and governments. She seeks to impart that it is essential to reject silence and indifference, and to combat hatred, discrimination, and injustice in our local communities, nation, and world.

Tamar was born in Israel and came to the United States when she was two years old. She holds a B.A. in History from Yale University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. She worked at Kramer Levin & Naftalis, the Anti-Defamation League's Legal Affairs Department, and Hadassah's National Domestic Policy Department, where she founded Hadassah's Amicus Brief Program. She is currently Chair of Hadassah's National Attorneys’ Council and a member of Hadassah’s National Board, National Portfolio Council. She is also a member of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Committee’s Westchester/Fairfield Region, Co-Chair of the Campus Committee and the Israel New Perspectives Committee, and a founder of the region’s Leaders for Tomorrow education and advocacy program for high school students.

Tamar is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, and Chair of Alumni and Parent Relations. She is co-founder and national Vice-Chair of the Yale Jewish Alumni Association. She is a member of the Yale Parents Leadership Council, a Yale Alumni Fund Class Agent since graduation, a Co-Chair of her Yale 20th Reunion, and an Attendance Chair of her Yale 30th Reunion. Tamar endows a fund that supports Yale students travelling to Israel to study and work and a fund that supports Israeli students studying at Yale. She lives in Purchase, New York and has two children: Danielle is a Yale graduate who is currently pursuing a J.D./M.S.F.S. at Georgetown University while working for the U.S. Department of Justice and William is a senior at Yale.

Tamar is a member of GenerationsForward, a group of second and third generation individuals sponsored by the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center of White Plains, New York.

To download an editable flyer, CLICK HERE