or forty years the HUC-JIR
learning community has
been enriched by a teacher,
scholar, and mentor whose life
and life’s work embody the spirit
and values of Jewish survival and
Reform Judaism – Dr. Michael
A. Meyer, Adolph S. Ochs
Professor of Jewish History, at
HUC-JIR/Cincinnati. In an
interview with
The Chronicle
,
Meyer recounted his life’s jour-
ney and decades of contribution
to Jewish scholarship and conti-
nuity of heritage.
Born in Berlin, Meyer escaped
Nazi Europe in 1941 with his
parents and grandmother, arriv-
ing in the United States at 3
1
/
2
years of age – a scant four
months before the Nazi policy
shifted from forced Jewish emi-
gration to deportation and
death. “I think my awareness of
being one of the
nitzolai
haShoah –
those saved from the
Holocaust – has deepened my
commitment to things Jewish
and to the study of German-
Jewish history,” Meyer says.
Today, he is internationally rec-
ognized as the preeminent
historian of Reform Judaism and
of the religious and intellectual
life of German Jewry.
A product of the Reform youth
movement, his genesis as a
Jewish historian came out of a
combined interest in Judaism
and a commitment to Reform
Judaism. After his undergraduate
studies at UCLA, Meyer initially
contemplated the rabbinate and
completed part of the rabbinical
program at HUC-JIR/Los
Angeles when it was still at its
original location on the Appian
Way. He went on to work for the
Ph.D. at HUC-JIR, where he
studied with Ellis Rivkin in
Cincinnati and Fritz Bamberger
in New York.
“
I finished by doctoral studies in
1964,”
he recalls, “before the
explosion of Jewish studies on
American campuses. So I was
faced with a very difficult deci-
sion, because I was not a rabbi
and there were precious few jobs
for Jewish scholars aside from
those in seminaries. At first, it
seemed as if I would have to look
for a job at a Hillel Foundation
because at that time Hillel had
some directors who were not rab-
bis. I had almost accepted a job at
the Hillel at the University of
Alabama, when HUC-JIR
President Nelson Glueck offered
me a position at our Los Angeles
School, followed three years later
with an offer to come to
Cincinnati.” As a pioneer in his
field, he was one of the founders
of the Association of Jewish Studies
and served as its president (1978-80).
As a matter of fact, Meyer is one
of the relatively few people who
has taught at all of HUC-JIR’s
centers of learning. Currently,
Meyer teaches at the Jerusalem
School every fourth semester
while simultaneously giving a
graduate seminar at the Hebrew
University, where he is a regular
visiting professor. At various
times, he has also been a visiting
member of the faculties of UCLA,
Antioch College, University of
Haifa, and Ben Gurion University.
Meyer’s required courses for rab-
binical students include medieval
and modern Jewish history and
the history of the Reform
Movement in Judaism; during
the 2003-04 academic year, he
will offer electives on Jewish his-
toriography and the intellectual
history of Zionism. At HUC-
JIR/Jerusalem, he teaches the
Israeli rabbinical students a course
on the history and thought of
Reform Judaism. “I feel a special
satisfaction in teaching rabbinical
students, with whom I share val-
ues and through whom I can
have some influence on the
Reform Movement and on the
religious lives of individuals. I
believe in a learned rabbinate that
is knowledgeable in Jewish
sources. While the pastoral and
practical duties of the rabbi are
without question essential, I see
the rabbi gaining her or his
authority from knowledge of Jewish
tradition and Jewish history.”
Meyer has observed changes over
the forty years of teaching two
generations of students. “The
interest in Jewish history is some-
what less today than it was 20
years ago. We were more focused
then on Jewish national issues. As
the rabbinate has changed, our
students have increasingly stressed
practical rabbinics as well as
Jewish thought and tradition.”
Meyer finds that this trend is
reflected in the shift in emphasis
of the Reform Movement’s plat-
forms. “The 1976 platform,
which Eugene Borowitz largely
wrote, was focused on Jewish
survival, the people of Israel,
and Jewish history. The more
recent platform dwells upon the
Jewish person, the individual,
22
THE CHRONICLE
F
Michael A.
Meyer:
In 1996, Professor Michael A.
Meyer was awarded the
National Foundation for
Jewish Culture Zeltzer
Scholarship Award in
Historical Studies for his major
influence on colleagues and
students in his field.
Four Decades at HUC-JIR
by Jean Bloch Rosensaft
(
continued on page 24)