Regina Liliental

Regina Lilientalowa, born Gitla née Eiger; 24 November 1875 in Zawichost – 4 December 1924 in Warsaw). She was a Polish ethnographer, translator, and journalist of Jewish origin. She is known for her pioneering research on Jewish folk rituals and literature.

Life Gitla Eiger was born to Moses and Bluma Fayga née Halpern, in a traditional family of moderately Polonized Jews, descendants of rabbi Akiva Eiger (1761–1837), in Zawichost, at the time a part of the Russian Empire. She attended school at Sandomierz. After her marriage to Nathan Liliental in 1896 in the Synagogue in Szczebrzeszyn, she moved to Warsaw.

Lilientalowa had three children: Stanisława (born 1897), Jan (who lived only for seven months in 1900), and Antoni (born 1908). while Antoni joined the Polish army and was killed in the Katyn Massacre.

Lilientalowa died on 4 December 1924 from a failed operation in Warsaw.

Lilientalowa published her first ethnographic works Przesady żydowskie (Jewish superstitions, 1898); Zaręczyny i wesele żydowskie (Jewish betrothal and wedding, 1900); Wierzenia, przesady i praktyki ludu żydowskiego (Beliefs, Superstitions and Practices of the Jews, 1904–1905). She translated Yiddish folk songs from the collections of Saul Ginzberg and Peter Marek.

Selected works