Birth Name: Eliot Laurence Spitzer
Place of Birth: Riverdale, New York City, New York
Date of Birth: June 10, 1959
Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish
Eliot Spitzer is an American politician and television show host. A Democrat, he served as the Governor of New York from 2007 until 2008. He resigned because of his involvement in a prostitution scandal.
Eliot is the son of Anne (Goldhaber), a professor of English, and Bernard Spitzer, a real estate developer and philanthropist. His paternal grandparents were Polish Jewish immigrants. His maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from what is now Israel (then part of the Ottoman Empire).
The 1930 U.S. Census lists all of Eliot’s maternal great-grandparents as having been born in “Palestine” (Ottoman-controlled Israel), and the family lived in the city of Safed. Given the Ashkenazi Jewish surnames “Goldhaber” and “Heller”, it is likely that Eliot’s mother’s family was Ashkenazi, and had perhaps come to the area as part of the First Aliyah (from 1882 to 1903).
Eliot’s paternal grandparents were Morris Spitzer (the son of Ephraim Yosef ben Avraham Tzvi HaLevi Spitzer and Eva) and Amalia Sarah “Molly” Katz (the daughter of David Katz and Esther). Morris was born in Tluste.
Eliot’s maternal grandparents were Joseph Goldhaber and Zirel “Shirley” Heller.
Source: Genealogy of Eliot Spitzer – http://www.wargs.com
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