What Really Happened To Barbra Streisand's Father?

May 2024 · 2 minute read

Barbra Streisand's father died when she was just over a year old, per The New York Times Magazine. Emanuel Streisand himself was very young — just 35. In 1943, the English teacher went to work at a high school in Brooklyn and didn't return at night, People detailed in 1983. The reasons behind Emanuel's death were unclear at the time, with some claiming he had died of heat stroke, the outlet detailed. Barbra's mother, Diana, told her children their father had died from working too much, a notion that haunted Barbra for a long time, she told People. "I thought I might die of overwork too," Barbra said.

Later, however, Diana shared that Emanuel had actually suffered an epileptic seizure, a condition that was veiled in misconceptions and shame at that time, and likely died from complications of the morphine administered in his neck to control it, as People explained. Some biographers have theorized that Emanuel's condition was triggered by a head injury he suffered while working as a counselor at a summer camp, per the 2001 book "Jews of Brooklyn." 

Barbra felt she lost both parents that day. "Emotionally, my mother left me at the same time — she was in her own trauma," Barbra told People. Diana also stopped mentioning Emanuel altogether. "Later in life, I said, 'Why didn't you ever tell me about my father?' She said, 'I didn't want you to miss him,'" Barbra told Oprah Winfrey.

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