William Helmreich (August 25, 1945 – March 28, 2020) was a Swiss-born American professor of sociology at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York (CCNY) is a nonpartisan educational, training, and research center named for its founder, Colin Powell, General Colin L. Powell, USA (Retired), a graduate of CCNY. ...

and the

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. He was also a published author. Helmreich was a distinguished professor at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

, who specialized in race and ethnic relations, religion, immigration, risk behavior, the sociology of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, urban sociology, consumer behavior, and market research.

Early life

Helmreich was born in 1945 in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

, Switzerland, the son of

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

parents. In 1946, he was brought to the US as an infant, and grew up in New York City on

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

’s

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

. He studied in the Ner Yisroel and Kamenitz Yeshivas.

Career

Helmreich wrote about his early years in a book he named "''Wake Up, Wake Up, to Do the Work of the Creator''" (a phrase, spoken in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

, by those who went house-to-house to awaken worshippers for daily prayer). When asked about recordings of "many of the famous roshei Yeshiva of yesteryear" whom he interviewed, "Do you still have the recordings?" he replied "At one time I thought I did, but it seems that all I have are the transcripts." These he donated to his '' alma mater'',

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universit ...

Works

* ''The Black Crusaders'' (1973) * ''The things they say behind your back'' (1982) * ''The World of the Yeshiva'' (1982) * ''Flight Path'' (1989) * ''Against All Odds'' (1992) * ''The Enduring Community'' (1998) * ''What Was I Thinking'' (2010) * ''The New York Nobody Knows'' (2013) * ''The Brooklyn Nobody Knows'' (2016) * ''The Manhattan Nobody Knows'' (2018)

''The World of the Yeshiva''

Helmreich revised his 1982 ''The World of the Yeshiva'' 18 years later by comparing sociological changes "among the strictly Orthodox" since his 1980 research. Two areas about the new edition highlighted by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' are the doubling in those doing full-time "collegiate and graduate"-level religious studies and population growth.

Death

Helmreich died March 28, 2020 at age 74 of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck (village), New York, Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, New York, Great Neck Es ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Helmreich, William B. 1945 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers American sociologists Jewish American writers Graduate Center, CUNY faculty Yeshiva University alumni Scientists from Zürich Swiss emigrants to the United States