Mordecai Paldiel (born Markus Wajsfeld, March 10, 1937) is a lecturer at Stern College (

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

) and Queens College in New York. He received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

and an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in Religion and Holocaust Studies from

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

in Philadelphia. Paldiel is the former Director (1984-2007) of the Department of the

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

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 KTAV Publishing House is a publishing house located in Brooklyn, New York. Ktav means "to write" in Hebrew. Founded in 1921, it has been among the most notable publishers of Judaica and Jewish educational texts since the middle of the 20th cen ...

. Paldiel was born into a

Hassidic Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

family of Szlomo Wajsfeld, a diamond trader originally from

Miechów Miechów is a town in Poland, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, about north of Kraków. It is the capital of Miechów County. Population is 11,852 (2004). Miechów lies on the Miechówka river, along European route E77. The area of the town is , ...

near Kraków and Hinde '' née'' Labin from Uhnow (now Ukraine) 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.

Publications

* Mordecai Paldiel (1982), ''Secular Dualism: The 'religious' Nature of Hitler's Antisemitism'',

* Mordecai Paldiel (1992), כל המקיים נפש אחת: חסידי אומות העולם וייחודם

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

* Mordecai Paldiel (1993), ''The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews ..'', * Mordecai Paldiel (1996), ''Sheltering the Jews: stories of Holocaust rescuers'', * Mordecai Paldiel (2006), ''Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching ..'', * Mordecai Paldiel (2007), ''Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust'', * Mordecai Paldiel (2007), ''The righteous among the nations'', * Mordecai Paldiel (2011), ''Saving the Jews: Men and Women who Defied the Final Solution'', * Mordecai Paldiel (2017), ''Saving One's Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paldiel, Mordecai 1937 births Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Living people Jewish historians Jewish writers Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Queens College, City University of New York faculty Temple University alumni Yad Vashem people Yeshiva University faculty