Joseph Leon Blau (May 6, 1909 – December 28, 1986) was an American scholar of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

history and philosophy.

Biography

Blau was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He attended

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he studied under

Salo Wittmayer Baron Salo Wittmayer Baron (May 26, 1895 – November 25, 1989) was a Polish-born American historian, described as "the greatest Jewish historian of the 20th century". Baron taught at Columbia University from 1930 until his retirement in 1963. Life ...

. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1931, his master's in 1933, and his Ph.D. in 1944, all from Columbia. Blau taught at Columbia from 1944 to 1977 and was chair of its Department of Religion from 1968 to 1977. Blau was one of the signers of

A Secular Humanist Declaration A Secular Humanist Declaration was an argument for and statement of support for democratic secular humanism. The document was issued in 1980 by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH), now the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH). ...

in 1980. He was also one of the signers of the

Humanist Manifesto ''Humanist Manifesto'' is the title of three manifestos laying out a humanist worldview. They are the original '' Humanist Manifesto'' (1933, often referred to as Humanist Manifesto I), the ''Humanist Manifesto II'' (1973), and ''Humanism and I ...

. He was a foreign member of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

. He died in 1986 in

Riverdale, New York Riverdale is a residential neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of the Bronx. Riverdale, which had a population of 47,850 as of the 2000 United States Census, contains the city's northernmost point, at the College ...

Writings

His notable writings include ''Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance'' (1944); ''Men and Movements in American Philosophy'' (1952); ''The Story of Jewish Philosophy'' (1962), ''The Jews of the United States, 1790–1840'' (co-edited with Salo Baron, 1963), ''Modern Varieties of Judaism'' (1966), and ''Judaism in America'' (1976).

References

External links

Finding Aid to the Joseph L. Blau papers, Columbia University Columbia Encyclopedia entry
1909 births 1986 deaths American philosophy academics American religion academics 20th-century American Jews Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty Historians of Jews and Judaism Jewish philosophers Jewish American historians Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy {{US-philosopher-stub