Gay, Ruth 1922-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born October 19, 1922, in New York, NY; died of leukemia, May 9, 2006, in New York, NY. Author. Gay was a noted nonfiction author who wrote about the Jewish experience in Europe and America. She completed a B.A. at Queens College of the City University of New York in 1943, followed much later, in 1969, by a master's in library science at Columbia University. During the 1940s, she worked in education for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, becoming education director of the Leisure Wear Joint Board from 1944 to 1946. A two-year post as a writer and assistant editor at Labor and Nation was followed by work as researcher and editor for the American Joint Distribution Committee. With the exception of the years 1972 to 1985, during which Gay was an archivist and cataloger at the library at Yale University, she spent the rest of her career as a freelance editor and writer. Critics considered her an accomplished author on the Jewish experience, often bringing to light previously ignored topics about Jewish history, such as the lives of Jews who returned to Germany after World War II. Among her notable books are The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait (1992), Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America (1996), which won the 1997 National Jewish Book Award, and Safe among the Germans: Liberated Jews after World War II (2002). Another book, The Jewish King Lear Comes to America, was recently written with her daughter, Sophie Gay, and was scheduled to be published posthumously.

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PERIODICALS

New York Times, May 11, 2006, p. C15.