Jonathan Frankel (July 15, 1935, in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

– May 7, 2008, in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

) was a historian and writer. He was a lecturer at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

from 1964 to 1985, and a professor between 1985 and 2004.Steven J. Zipperstein
Professor Jonathan Frankel: Historian of modern Jewry
// Obituary.

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, Saturday 2 August 2008.

Influence

Frankel was a noted historian of Modern Jewry, as testified in many obituaries: “the most highly regarded historian of modern Jewry of his generation” ( Steven Zipperstein, ''The Independent''); “arguably the greatest historian of modern Jewry of his generation” (''

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''); “a brilliant historian of Russian and Jewish history” (

David Cesarani David Ian Cesarani (13 November 1956 – 25 October 2015) was a British historian who specialised in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He also wrote several biographies, including ''Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind'' (1998). Academic ...

, ''

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'',). Frankel contributed to the historiography of East European Jewish life with his book ''Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917'' (1982), which became a classic at the moment of its publication. This work approached Jewish history of the nineteenth and early twentieth century from a completely new perspective. He is credited with having "helped establish the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies" at ''Hebrew University of Jerusalem'' and the study of modern Jewish politics.

Family

Frankel married Edith Rogovin in 1963; their marriage resulted in two daughters.

Books

* ''Vladimir Akimov on the Dilemmas of Russian Marxism 1895–1903: The Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party''.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 1969 * ''Prophecy and Politics: socialism, nationalism and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917''.

, 1984,
1984. – 686 pages
(translated into Hebrew, Italian and Russian) * ''The Damascus Affair: 'Ritual Murder', Politics, and the Jews in 1840''.

1997. – 491 pages
–

Review
/ Middle East Quarterly, Volume 13 / September 1, 1998) (translated into Hebrew). * ''Social Radicalism: "Jewish Socialism" and Jewish Labour Movement in Eastern Europe'',

Open University of Israel The Open University of Israel (, ''Ha-Universita ha-Ptuha'') is a distance education, distance-education university in Israel. It is one of ten public universities in Israel recognized by the Council of Higher Education (CHE). Open University ...

, 2007 (in Hebrew) * ''Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews''.

, 2009

Other works

* Jonathan Frankel, Jewish politics and the Russian Revolution of 1905, Tel-Aviv, Tel Aviv University, 1982 (21 pages)

Obituaries

* Steven J. Zipperstein, "Remembering Our Colleagues: Jonathan Frankel (1935 - 2008)," ''Association for Jewish Studies'', January 2008. * Vladimir Levin, Professor Jonathan Frankel (1935–2008), ''Journal East European Jewish Affairs'', Volume 38, Issue 3, December 2008, pp. 251–252. * Semion Gol’din and Vladimir Levin, "In memoriam of Jonathan Frankel," in: ''Arkhiv evreiskoi istorii'', Vol. 5 (2008), pp. 347–351 (in Russian). * Eli Lederhendler, "In Memoriam: Jonathan Frankel, 1935–2008," ''American Jewish History'', July 2009, 94 (3), pp. 225–227.
Jonathan Frankel – Thought-provoking contributor to Jewish and Russian history

Professor Jonathan Frankel: Historian of Russia and modern Jewry

References

* Scott Ury, "Was There a Jerusalem School of Modern Jewish Politics? On the Organization, Construction, Production and Limits of Knowledge," ''Jewish Quarterly Review,'' 113, 1 (2023): 160-190. {{DEFAULTSORT:Frankel, Jonathan 1935 births 2008 deaths Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Historians of Jews and Judaism British historians of religion British male non-fiction writers 20th-century British historians 21st-century British historians