Elena Ethel "Elly" Schlein

Elena Ethel (Elly) Schlein is an Italian politician. She was born in 1985 in Lugano, Switzerland. Her father, Melvin Schlein, is an American academic and political scientist of Jewish origin, and her mother, Maria Paola Viviani, is a professor of comparative public law at the University of Insubria. Schlein's maternal grandfather, Agostino Viviani, was an Italian Socialist Party politician, a senator from 1972 to 1979, and a High Council of the Judiciary member.

Schlein's family roots on her father's side go back to Zhovkva, a town in the Lviv region. This city gained prominence thanks to the publication of East West Street, a book by Philippe Sands, a famous international lawyer whose relatives once lived there. This book attempts to place Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin in the context of Ukrainian-Jewish history. These were the famous human rights defenders of the 20th century, who are also closely connected with Zhovkva and Lviv. Of course, the book also tells the story of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and discusses this crime openly. Zhovkva is the hometown of Clara Kramer, the author of the autobiographical book Clara's War, which describes WWII events and the Holocaust in Zhovkva from 1939–1944. Shimon Samet, a famous Israeli journalist, was also born and raised in this town.

Schlein graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Bologna in 2011 and defended a thesis on constitutional law. She holds American, Italian, and Swiss citizenship. Schlein identifies as a feminist and supports the social and political movement of progressivism.

In 2008 and 2012, Schlein participated in Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in the United States. She is a member of the Chamber of Deputies in Italy, previously serving as the vice-president of the Emilia-Romagna region and a member of the European Parliament. Schlein was elected secretary of the Democratic Party in February 2023.

The Democratic Party received 24.1 percent in the European Parliament elections in April 2024. This is the party's best result in recent history, and it was achieved partly thanks to the leadership of Elly Schlein.