Jehuda Reinharz (born 1944) is the President of Brandeis University, and a Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History at the same institution.

Early life and education

Reinharz was born in Haifa in modern-day Israel. He received his high school education in Germany and immigrated to the United States as a teenager in 1961.

Reinharz earned concurrent bachelor’s degrees--a B.S. from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Religious Education (B.R.E) from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He earned his master's degree in medieval Jewish history from Harvard University in 1968, and his Ph.D. in modern Jewish history from Brandeis University in 1972.

Career

He was the first professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he created the interdisciplinary program that formed basis for the University's Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

In 1982, he became the Professor of Modern Jewish History in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Two years later, he was named Director of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis and eight years later founded the Jacob and Libby Goodman Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel. From 1991 to 1994, Dr. Reinharz served as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Presidentship

He was announced as the University's seventh president in March 1994, succeeding Samuel O. Thier. During Reinharz's tenure, the university has undergone some major physical changes including the creation of the Village Residence Hall, Abraham Shapiro Academic Complex, and the Shapiro Campus Center, and the destruction of Ford Hall.

Awards and honors

Reinharz is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, such as the President of Israel Prize, awarded by the Israeli Parliament, Knesset in 1990. He was also elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.

In 1998, Reinharz was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States.

Dr. Reinharz is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Fairfield University in Connecticut, Ben Gurion University in Israel, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Publications

Reinharz is the author of more than hundred articles and twenty books in various languages. His Jew in the Modern World is one of the most widely adopted college texts in modern Jewish history. His two-volume biography of Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, has won many prizes in Israel and the United States and his book, co-authored with the late Ben Halpern, entitled Zionism and the Creation of a New Society, was published in 1998.

His two latest books are published in Hebrew. In October 2005 he co-edited the letters and documents relating to the life and times of Manya Shohat, a remarkable pioneer of the Second Aliyah. In September 2006 he published a book, co-authored with Yaacov Shavit, analyzing the relationship of Jews to Europe from the 18th century to the present. His book Israel in the Middle East co-edited with Itamar Rabinovich; will be published in the spring of 2007.

Family

His wife, Shulamit Reinharz, is a professor of Sociology at Brandeis University and also directs the Women's Studies Research Center housed in the Epstein Center.

Jehuda and Shulamit are the parents of Naomi and Yael Reinharz. Yael attended Bowdoin College and New York University. Naomi attended Brown University and currently attends Georgetown Law School.

References

• Brandeis University Bio