Ellern, Recha (Rachel)

Recha (Rachel) Ellern was born on 2.12.1895 in Nuremberg and died in 1973 in Tel Aviv. She was engaged in social work and in teaching from an early age, mainly in Nuremberg. From 1914–1915, for example, she worked in an after-school day-care institution (Kinderhort) run by B'nai B'rith in Nuremberg, and from 1916–1919 she worked for the Mizrachi organization in Nuremberg, where she did youth welfare work, taught courses with historical, economical and sociopolitical subjects, and did statistical work and home visits. In the years 1919–1921, she voluntarily headed the Mizrachi youth home in Berlin, where she also taught. Recha took an external examination at the Soziale Frauenschule in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1922. Then, she worked as a social worker at the 'Israelitisch-Humanitäter Frauenverein' in Hamburg-Altona. During that time, the union was merged with the Jewish Settlement of Hamburg. Finally, Recha Ellern headed the social work department of the Jewish community in Hamburg, including a children's home. When the Nazis took power, she saved a lot of Jews in Hamburg from deportation. In 1938, she accompanied a Kindertransport to Palestine, where she stayed. In the 1950s, she was a main inspector at the department for research and planning at the ministry of welfare, and in 1959 she was involved in a community centre in the Hatikva neighbourhood in Tel Aviv.