Historian and broadcaster Yanky Fachler was born in Letchworth to parents who escaped as teenagers from Nazi Germany. After completing his BA and MA in London, he lived in Israel for many years before moving to Ireland.

Yanky is the founder and chair of the Jewish Historical Society of Ireland and is on the board of the Irish Jewish Museum. He is the author of a dozen books on Zionist history and the history of the Irish Jewish community. During the covid era, he delivered 250 zoom talks to a global audience.

Of all the pop-up satellite communities established during WW2 by Jewish families seeking refuge from the London bombings, Letchworth Garden City was unique in its highly unusual mix of Ashkenazi and Sefardi, and Orthodox and non-orthodox families. For 30 of its 1,100 years, the handwritten Hebrew Bible that recently broke records at Sotheby’s, resided in the Sassoon Library in Letchworth.