Sarah “Shorty” Elias grew up in Ottoman Monastir, where she worked as a house maid from a young age. In 1911, she left the Ottoman Empire for New York in the United States. There, she met and married Rabbi David Elias, a member of the leading Rabbinic family of Monastir. Together, they had seven children, who grew up in the center of the Monastirli community in America, and to whom they taught the music of their childhoods. Joe Elias, the youngest child, born in 1933, remembered learning around 150 songs from his parents. Shorty Elias died in Brooklyn, NY, 1965. Her music and voice survive in her son’s recordings.
See some of Sarah Elias' recordings here: Music of the Jews of Monastir.
