I just saw this by accident. We have lost a wonderful and unique personality, colleague and friend. Not only thanks to her wonderful  curious nature, but also thanks to important contributions to medical anthropology and the Jewish personal history, she will be remembered by those who were influenced by her or knew her. 

A life lived to remember those who lost their lives under incredible circumstances.

Michael Heinrich 23.12.25

I was Kaja's teaching assistant at UNC in the anthro department and was very impressed by her depth and resilience.   She had a substantive intellect and worked hard to understand the roles of women in Latin American Spiritist culture.  She worked on this for decades and very much mastered it.   She was very close to her mother, together they survived the Holocaust and I think this experience very much defined her.  Her undergraduate classes and graduate seminars on medical anthropology were stellar.  Lacking any medical training she was a genuine expert on the limitations of western medical practice.
  Kaja either liked you or she didnt and  she made that clear.  The last time I saw her I had graduated law school and ran into her in the parking lot of RDU airport searching for her car.  I drove her around until she found her car and during the whole time she was analyzing my shortcomings.  To be fair, she had years earlier given me good advice about funding applications that I had, on the advice of my advisor, ignored, and she once offered to co-author an article for publication, which I declined. 
   I followed her work afterwards and always read her monographs and they got better and better.   If anyone is interested in Mexican and Central American medical anthropology or spiritist culture, especially from the point of view of women, I think Kaja is the primary source.  As an anthropologist, a Jewish child survivor of the Holocaust and an educator, she was an example to us all.
  Rest in peace, Kaja.

So very sorry to hear of Kaja's passing.  My mother (Gloria Jordan) was very fond of her, and I remember Kaja's visits to our house when I was a child.  (I believe they were distant cousins.)  Kaja was a remarkable woman, and I remember her as having a lively spark. My condolences.

The family of Kaja (Kaile, Kay) Finkler, of blessed memory, is sad to announce her passing on June 22, 2025, at her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA.
Descended from two illustrious Polish rabbinic families (one Hassidic and one Mitnagid), Kaja maintained close connections with her family of origin and pursued a successful academic career in medical anthropology, publishing six books and more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, eventually retiring as Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill.
Kaile Nehama Dvora Finkler, daughter of Golda Royza Finkler (herself daughter of the Modzitzer Rabbi Shaul Taub and Kajla Nechuma Ejgier) and of Rabbi Chaim Yosef Finkler, was born in the mid-1930s in Warsaw, Poland. The onset of World War II separated her from both parents through much of the war, during which her father perished. Miraculously, blessed by the merit (zchus) of her ancestors, Kaja and her mother both survived the Shoah and were reunited after the war. She was thought to be the youngest survivor of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, after also having been in other labor and prison camps. Post-retirement she devoted most of her energy to supporting education about the Holocaust. In 2012 she published Lives Lived and Lost: East European History Before, During, and After World War II as Experienced by an Anthropologist and Her Mother (Academic Studies Press), a powerful and exceptionally detailed history of their family background and her and her mother’s recollections of their separate wartime experiences.
Burial is planned for approximately 11 AM Friday, June 27, at the Har HaMenuhot Cemetery, Jerusalem.  A gathering in her memory is planned in North Carolina at a later date. Contributions in Kaja’s memory may be sent to the “Golda and Chaim Yoseph Finkler Endowment Fund,” Jewish Community Foundation, ℅ Milwaukee Jewish Federation, 1360 N. Prospect Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53202-3094

AVIS DE DÉCÈS

Kaja Finkler

24 janvier 1935 – 22 juin 2025

Brown-Wynne Funeral Home

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