Vielle Jaytee

Undotted Is or Rin ures Vielle Jaytee

Vicki Levy Julisch Tamir (V. L. J. T. or Vielle Jaytee) was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, on July 17, 1924, and passed away in Manhattan on May 5, 2015. At ninety, she could still speak seven languages and had an encyclopedic knowledge of history, philosophy, literature, music, and art. Vicki graduated from the American College at Lovech and the Law School of the University of Sofia. Between 1945 and 1947, she served as coeditor of Poalei Tsion and Tsionisticheska Tribuna in Sofia. In 1947, she left communist Bulgaria to attend a Zionist seminar in Basel, Switzerland. There she met Ernst Julisch, who had escaped Nazi-controlled Austria. Always an avid Zionist, Vicki left Basel to participate in Israel's 1948 War of Independence. She returned to Switzerland and married Ernst in 1950. They had one daughter. Ernst died suddenly just before their daughter's first birthday. In 1953, Vicki immigrated to the United States. She worked as a translator in New York, where she was introduced to Max (Mordechai) Tamir, a city planner. Max and Vicki married in 1956 and had one son and one granddaughter. Vicki Levy Julisch Tamir is the author of many literary and political papers and numerous articles in McGraw Hill's Encyclopedia of World Drama. Together with Max Tamir she also co-authored a play, Wall Street on the Hudson. However, Vicki is probably best known for her historical work, Bulgaria and Her Jews: The History of a Dubious Symbiosis. Undotted I's was written from Vicki's 1952-1954 diaries. Perhaps because these memoirs contain such intimate details, deep feelings, and strong opinions, she asked that her daughter, Edie, not publish them until after her death.