Biography
Eleanor Dienstag (born Eleanor Foa) is the daughter of Bruno Foa and Lisa Hainmann Foa. Her father Bruno was the youngest of five children; he was born in Naples on December 8, 1905 and trained as an economist and lawyer. As a young man, he spent much of 1927 living in London and working with Chaim Weitzman for the World Zionist Organization. He returned to Italy reluctantly in February 1928 shortly before his father, Eurenio's, death. At the age of 28, he received a professorship in the economics department of the University of Bari and became Italy's youngest full professor. He also practiced law in Naples where he continued to live. In 1936 while he met Lisa Haimann, a German-Jew living in Italy. They married in 1937, and their older daughter Eleanor was born the following year on April 13, 1938. At the same time, Bruno began to experience growing Italian antisemitism. In 1937 talian Fascists vetoed his appointment to a named chair. On July 14 1938, Mussolini's government enacted a racial manifesto, which barred Jews from obtaining public employment, joining the armed forces or attending schools and universities. Facing disbarment and the loss of his professorship, Bruno felt he could no longer continue to live in Italy. He moved to England in 1938 six weeks later and was joined by Lisa and Eleanor as soon as it was possible. The family then immigrated to the United States in August 1940, and a second daughter, Pamela was born in December 1944.
