Eleanor Chana Mlotek (née Gordon; April 9, 1922 – November 4, 2013) was a musicologist, specializing in Yiddish folklore.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Yiddish writer and Nobel laureate, once called Mlotek and her husband, Joseph, “the Sherlock Holmeses of Yiddish folk songs.”[1] She was also inducted in Hunter College's Hall of Fame.
[3] They include both collections of music and exhibition catalogs of Yiddish authors.
She held the position of Music Archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and was also a columnist at the Yiddish Forward for over forty years.
[4][5] She was born in Brooklyn and is the mother of Zalmen Mlotek, the artistic director of the National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene, and Mark Mlotek, an attorney and current treasurer of The Forward.