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Doris Zelinsky

b. September 3, 1949

by JWA Staff
Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. We are providing this brief biography for Doris Zelinsky until we are able to commission a full entry.

Doris Zelinsky. Photo courtesy of Doris Zelinsky.

While Doris Zelinsky has spent her professional career in the food industry, the work closest to her heart has been preserving the memory of the Holocaust. The child of two Holocaust survivors, Zelinsky earned a BA in economics from Yale in 1971, followed by an MPA from Princeton University in 1974. She discovered a passion for food automation and spent six years working for the Lender brothers to rapidly grow their bagel manufacturing in pace with the bagel’s explosive growth. She remained with the bagels division when the company was purchased by Kraft Foods in 1986 and stayed through the subsequent merger with Phillip Morris and General Foods in 1990. From the Lenders experience, Zelinsky grew her career in food and other automated manufacturing and distribution, and since 2004, has been both consultant and director for bakery, food service, and manufacturing companies in the U.S. A pivotal experience came in 2005 when Zelinsky visited the first Holocaust Memorial built in the US on public land in her home town of New Haven. She was shocked by its deteriorated condition and made it her mission to rehabilitate and preserve the physical site, tell its story, and emphasize its lessons of the dangers of prejudice and hate. Accordingly, she has served since 2006 as the founding President of Greater New Haven Holocaust Memory, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to maintaining the Memorial and telling its story. In 2015, with award-winning film maker Elena Lefkowitz, Zelinsky produced a short documentary, “People Forget ... New Haven Remembers,” capturing the story of the New Haven Memorial and bringing it to a wide audience beyond New Haven.  Zelinsky’s contributions to the Jewish community include her role as a founding board member of the Jewish Women’s Archive.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Doris Zelinsky." (Viewed on December 8, 2024) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/zelinsky-doris>.