Don Jaffe

Don Jaffe (or Jaffé) (; born 24 January 1933) is a German-Israeli-Latvian musician and composer. Biography Family Jaffe was born in 1933 in Riga, Latvia, to Ella Jaffe who had attended a German business school in Riga, and Jakov Jaffe, who had studied electrical engineering in Berlin. After his studies, Jakov Jaffe returned to Riga. In 1941, when the German Wehrmacht conquered Latvia, the Jaffe family – Jakov, Ella, Don, and his two siblings – had to flee to Siberia. After World War II, the Jaffes decided to return to Riga. All their relatives who couldn’t escape to the Soviet Union were murdered. In 1956, Don Jaffe married Elza Jaffe, born Peterson. They have two children: Ramon (born 1962, a cellist) and Diana (born 1969), a book author and expert in gender marketing). Since 1975, Don Jaffe has lived in Bremen. Career At the age of fourteen, Jaffe started to learn Cello at the Emīls Dārziņš Music School, the junior music conservatory in Riga. In 1951, he was the first string player to graduate from this music school. Jaffe finished his studies there in only four years instead of the regular ten. From 1951 to 1956 he studied Cello at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in R