Bella Kaufman (May 10, 1911 – July 25, 2014) was an American teacher and author, well known for writing the bestselling 1964 novel Up the Down Staircase. Early life Bella's father, Michael Kaufman (Mikhail Y. Koyfman) and her mother, Lala (Lyalya) Kaufman (née Rabinowitz) were both from Russia and married in 1909. Bella Kaufman was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1911, where her father was studying medicine. The family subsequently returned to Russia where her father completed his studies. Her father eventually became a physician, and her mother, the second-oldest daughter of famed Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, later established herself as a writer under the name Lala Kaufman. Bel was the older of two children. Her brother Sherwin, born nine years later, was a New York City physician. Bel's native language was Russian, and she was raised in Odesa and Kyiv (in present-day Ukraine). As a child, she published her first poem, "Spring", in an Odessa magazine. Life there was very difficult. "Dead bodies were frozen in peculiar positions on the street," she recalled. "People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour." Kaufman emigrated to the United States in 1922 at age 12 with her parents. She and her family lived in Newark, New Jersey, where her father practiced medicine until his death in 1938. Her mother initially composed in Russian but went on to write sketches and stories in Yiddish that were published regularly for many years in the Jewish Daily Forward (Forverts), and she also translated some of Bel's grandfather (Sholem Aleichem)'s works from Yiddish into Russian. Bel Kaufman first began learning English after her arrival in the United States but it was hard for her. Upon entering public school at age 12, she was placed in classes with first graders hindered because of language. She attended Hunter College in New York, graduating magna cum laude in 1934 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She credits a teacher who helped her to learn the English language in her elementary years and it was through her that she came to love English literature. In 1936, Bel graduated with a Master's degree in literature from Columbia University. Career Kaufman began work as a teacher in various New York City high schools, while also working part-time as a writer (including articles for Esquire magazine) under the name Bel Kaufman, shortened because Esquire only accepted manuscripts