Ten-year-old Gottlieb immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1942 with some members of a Radomer family named Graucher using a visa originally obtained for a son who had already been deported by the Nazis.

With his father's death in the Flossenbürg concentration camp, and his mother's demise due to a tragic road accident in Germany after the war, Ben-Elissar was orphaned at the age of 14.

In 1947, Ben Elissar's sister, Diana, immigrated to the United States with her new husband, Moshe (Murray) Weinstock.

Raising three children, Leo, Allen, and Elaine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Diana remained a steadfast fixture in Ben-Elissar's life.

[5] He is buried in the Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery in Jerusalem, next to his mother, sister, brother, brother-in-law and uncle.