Ellen Cassedy

About Ellen

As a speaker, journalist, author of non-fiction books, and Yiddish translator, Ellen Cassedy connects the stories of ordinary people with social issues. Ellen, the author of We Are Here, has explored the world of Lithuania’s Holocaust past, the homeland of her Jewish forebears, the Soviet era, and Lithuanian hopes for the future for ten years.  She is a frequent speaker about Jewish and Lithuanian issues, and a regular contributor to VilNews, the international web magazine based in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Invite Ellen to Speak

Ellen Cassedy speaks to a wide variety of audiences about the Holocaust, Lithuania, and Jewish culture, and can design an engagement for your community. Ellen was recently profiled by the Cleveland Jewish News about her local speaking engagements there in December 2011.

Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn

Ellen’s award-winning play, Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn, celebrates the spare beauty of a small but important life. Based on the diary of an actual elderly woman, it was adapted into a short film that won 18 festival awards and qualified for an Academy Award nomination.

"After my great-aunt Jessie died," Ellen writes, "I opened a drawer and discovered a diary she’d begun keeping at the age of 76, living alone in Brooklyn in the 1970’s. I found myself mesmerized by her simple, spare language, and by what she had to tell me about the joys and sorrows of old age – in fact, about life itself. I wanted her voice to be heard."