Paul R. Mendes-Flohr (born 17 April 1941) is a leading scholar of modern

Jew 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""T ...

ish thought. As an intellectual historian, Mendes-Flohr specializes in 19th and 20th-century Jewish thinkers, including

Martin Buber Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ...

, Franz Rosenzweig,

Gershom Scholem Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Myst ...

and Leo Strauss.Martina Urban; Christian Wiese. ''German-Jewish Thought Between Religion and Politics. Festschrift in Honor of Paul Mendes-Flohr on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday.'' In: ''Studia Judaica.'' 60, 2012. Mendes-Flohr holds a doctorate from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

, which was supervised by

Alexander Altmann Alexander Altmann (April 16, 1906 – June 6, 1987) was an Orthodox Jewish scholar and rabbi born in Kassa, Austria-Hungary (present-day Košice, Slovakia). He emigrated to England in 1938 and later settled in the United States, working productive ...

, Nahum Glatzer, and Ben Halpern. Mendes-Flohr taught at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, where he is Dorothy Grant Maclear Professor Emeritus of Modern Jewish History and Thought. He is also Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is co-author end co-editor, with

Jehuda Reinharz Jehuda Reinharz (born August 1, 1944) served as President of Brandeis University from 1994–2010. He is currently the Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History and Director of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandei ...

, of a book for modern

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenisti ...

, ''The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History,'' and with Arthur A. Cohen'','' of a book on contemporary Jewish religious thought''.'' In 2019, Mendes-Flohr published a highly regarded Martin Buber biography entitled, ''Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent.'' The German translation appeared in 2022 and in Hebrew in 2023. His most recent work, ''Cultural Disjunctions: Post-Traditional Jewish Identities'', was published in 2021. In 2021, Mendes-Flohr began work o
The Global Lehrhaus
an international platform for education and reflection on issues of common concern. The Global Lehrhaus was inspired by the Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus (Free House of Jewish Learning), a center for continuing education established by Franz Rosenzweig, and later directed by

. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Mendes-Flohr has lived in Israel since 1970 where he currently resides with his wife, artis
Rita Mendes-Flohr
He has two children, both also artists, and four grandchildren.

Selected works

* ''Identität. Die zwei Seelen der deutschen Juden'' * *

' Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989. * ''Franz Rosenzweig and the Possibility of a Jewish Theology'' (forthcoming) * * ''German Jews: a dual identity'' 1999 * ''A land of two peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs'' Edited with commentary and a new preface by Paul R. Mendes-Flohr. * Divided passions: Jewish intellectuals and the experience of modernity (1991) * Martin Buber: a contemporary perspective (2002) * * Martin Buber: a life of faith and dissent (2019)

References

1941 births Living people Jewish historians Israeli historians Philosophers of Judaism University of Chicago faculty Hebrew University of Jerusalem faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences {{judaism-philo-bio-stub