Eli N. Evans

Eli Nachamson Evans (July 28, 1936 – July 26, 2022) was an American author from North Carolina whose work encompassed explorations of the Jewish experience in the Southern United States. and Sara Nachamson. She was a daughter of retailers Eli and Jenny Nachamson, who owned the United Dollar Stores Company.

He received a B.A. in English literature from the University of North Carolina in 1958, and served as "the first Jewish president of the student body." He served in the United States Navy for two years, stationed in Japan. In the fall of 1958, he completed the Navy Supply Corps School as an ensign and was assigned to the USS Saint Paul (CA-73). After serving in the Navy, he went to graduate school, receiving a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1963.

Personal life In 1981, Evans married Judith London of Montgomery, Alabama, who he met in New York City, and with whom he remained until her death in 2008. They had one son, Joshua.

Evans died at a Manhattan hospital from complications of COVID-19, two days before his 86th birthday.

Works The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South (New York: Antheneum, 1973) —Reprinted, 1997 and 2005. Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate (New York: The Free Press, 1988). . The Lonely Days Were Sundays: Reflections of a Jewish Southerner (1993). Overview: The War Between Jewish Brothers in America, in Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (eds. Jonathan D. Sarna & Adam Mendelsohn; NYU Press: 2010).