Mordecai Paldiel


Mordecai Paldiel is a lecturer at Stern College and Queens College in New York.

Early life and education

Paldiel was born into a Hasidic family of Szlomo Wajsfeld, a diamond trader originally from Miechów near Kraków, and Hinde from Uhnów as one of their five children before World War II. Thanks to a Catholic Priest who was able to smuggle them across the border, the family fled from Nazi occupied Belgium via France to Switzerland in 1940 when he was 3 years old. Later after the war the family emigrated to New York:
He received a Bachelor of Arts from Hebrew University and a Master of Arts and PhD in Religion and Holocaust Studies from Temple University in Philadelphia. Paldiel is the former Director of the Department of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. He has written several books devoted to the subject including The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust published in 1993 by the KTAV Publishing House.

Personal life

Paldiel married Rachel Mizrahi in 1966 in Israel. The couple has 3 children, son Eli and daughters Sigalit "Siggy" and Iris.
His eldest daughter Siggy Flicker is a relationship expert and television personality who appeared on the Bravo reality television series The Real Housewives of New Jersey from 2016 to 2018.

Publications

  • Mordecai Paldiel, Secular Dualism: The 'religious' Nature of Hitler's Antisemitism, Temple University
  • Mordecai Paldiel, כל המקיים נפש אחת: חסידי אומות העולם וייחודם University of Michigan
  • Mordecai Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews..,
  • Mordecai Paldiel, Sheltering the Jews: stories of Holocaust rescuers,
  • Mordecai Paldiel, Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching..,
  • Mordecai Paldiel, Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust,
  • Mordecai Paldiel, The righteous among the nations,
  • Mordecai Paldiel, Saving the Jews: Men and Women who Defied the Final Solution,
  • Mordecai Paldiel, Saving One's Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust, .