Michael Brenner

Michael Brenner (born January 4, 1964 in Weiden) is an award-winning German-Jewish historian who researches and publishes on the history of Jews and Israel. Brenner has authored eight books on Jewish History, which were translated into twelve languages and is the editor and co-editor of eighteen books. He holds teaching positions at both the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the American University.

Early life and academic career

Brenner studied at the University and the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Columbia University in New York. He wrote his dissertation at Columbia University on Jewish culture in the Weimar Republic. From 1993 to 1994 he was Assistant Professor at Indiana University in Bloomington and from 1994 until 1997 at Brandeis University. Since 1997 he has taught as the chair for Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Since 2013 he has also been the Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies at the American University, Washington D.C. He has been visiting professor at numerous universities, among them Berkeley, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Haifa, Central European University Budapest, and ETH Zürich.[1]

Brenner, who repeatedly takes a position on public issues, was in 2016 a proponent of the Muslim publicist Navid Kermani for the office of Federal President, whom he described as the “most interesting voice in Germany”.[2] He is also considered a prominent critic of the party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), against the he repeatedly took a position.[3]

Brenner also became known through his studies of the socialist Kurt Eisner. On the political activity of numerous left-wing Jews for the Soviet Republic, Brenner wrote: "Many of them saw socialism as an opportunity to escape their own social plight".[4]

Honors and awards

In 1981, Michael Brenner won the first prize of the German-wide Federal President's History Competition among 13,000 competitors.[5]

From 1998 to 2009 Brenner was chair of the academic board of the Leo Baeck Institut in Germany. In 2013 he was appointed International President of the Leo Baeck Institut. Since 2009 he has been elected fellow of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, since 2012 of the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana in Mantua, and since 2014 of the American Academy of Jewish Research.[6] On November 20, 2014, German Minister of Justice Heiko Maas awarded Brenner with the highest decoration in Germany, the Federal Cross of Merit during a ceremony at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York [7] On December 7, 2020 The Knapp Family Foundation and the University of Vienna announced the establishment of the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research on the Jewish Experience with the award going to Brenner as the first Senior Laureate citing his scholarly work and lived experience bridging the US and Europe.

Selection of publications in English

As author
  • — (2018). In Search of Israel. Princeton University Press.
  • Brenner, Michael (2010). A Short History of the Jews. Princeton University Press.
  • — (2010). Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History. Princeton University Press.
  • — (2012). Zionism: A Brief History. Marcus Wiener.
  • — (1996). The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany. Yale University Press.
  • — (1997). German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 2. Columbia University Press.(as co-author, Awarded with National Jewish Book Award for Jewish History 1997)
  • — (1997). After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany. Princeton University Press.

As editor
  • Brenner, Michael, ed. (2015). Jews and Muslims in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht. (with Franziska Davies und Martin Schulze-Wessel)
  • —, ed. (2008). Mediating Modernity. Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World. Detroit: Wayne State University. (with Lauren B. Strauss)
  • —, ed. (2006). Emancipation Through Muscles: Jews and Sports in Europe. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press. (with Gideon Reuveni)
  • —, ed. (2003). Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered: The French and German Models. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. (with Vicki Caron and Uri R. Kaufmann)
  • —, ed. (1999). Two Nations: British and German Jews in Comparative Perspective. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. (with Rainer Liedtke and David Rechter)
  • —, ed. (1998). In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918-1933. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (with Derek Penslar)

References
  1. Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1987). Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften | Würdigunden der neuen Mitglieder | Michael Brenner (in German). C.H.Beck. p. 243.
  2. Michael Brenner (2016-10-25). "Navid Kermani: The most interesting voice that Germany has". Die Welt. Retrieved 2018-12-09.
  3. google search.
  4. "The long shadow of the revolution. Jews and Anti-Semites in Hitler's Munich 1918–1923 ”. Jewish publishing house in Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2019. ISBN 978-3-633-54295-6. (search term: "Many + of + them + saw + in + socialism + an + opportunity + to + escape + their + own + social + plight +")
  5. Dachs, Gisela (18 December 1992). "Jüdisch und deutsch". Zeit Online (in German).
  6. Prof. Dr. Michael Brenner, ordentliche Mitglieder der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, abgerufen am 15. März 2013.
  7. Newsletter on the Leo Baeck Institute New York homepage.
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