Eliane Karp - Early Life

Early Life

Eliane Chantal Karp-Toledo was born in Paris in 1953 to a Belgian mother and a Polish father. She studied economics at the Lycée Français in Brussels, and earned her B.A. in anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in Latin American Studies. She also holds a Master of Arts in Anthropology from Stanford University. Karp has taken courses on indigenous communities at the University of Mexico, and has done graduate work on Anthropology and Economic Development at the Catholic University of Peru.

At Stanford, she met Alejandro Toledo, whom she married in 1972. Karp first came to Peru in the late 1970s to study Indian (indigenous) communities. In 1992 Karp and Toledo divorced and she returned to Israel with their daughter. There she worked at Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv, where she was in charge of developing relationships with foreign banks. The couple remarried and returned to Peru before her husband's 1995 campaign.

During her husband's 2001 presidential bid, Karp contributed to a campaign which drew deeply on Toledo's indigenous heritage. She donned traditional Andean costume, rallied voters in Quechua, and demonstrated the couple's commitment to indigenous issues. According to The New York Times, "her flaming red hair and fiery speeches made her a popular and controversial fixture at campaign rallies.”