Shulamit Reinharz (born 1946) was the Jacob Potofsky Professor of Sociology at

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

until 2017. During her tenure at Brandeis, she was director of the

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...

program from 1991 to 2001 and launched ''The Scholars Program'', the first graduate program to focus on Jewish women. She was the founding director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute in 1997 and founder and director of the Women's Studies Research Center in 2001.

Early life

Shulamit Tirzah "Shula" Rothschild was born in 1946 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, the Netherlands to Ilse Hertha (née Strauss) and Max Michael Rothschild. She was named after the Shulamite to whom the biblical

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

sung the

Song of Songs The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...

. Rothschild's family were of

German-Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

heritage and as teenagers her parents became involved in the Socialist-Zionist youth movement known as Habonim to learn the agricultural skills which might be needed for life on a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

both of Rothschild's parents' families were scattered. Her father's sisters were rescued through the

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children from Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, total ...

program, which sent them to England, and his parents, fled to

Malden, Massachusetts Malden is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 66,263 people. History Malden is a hilly woodland area no ...

. Her mother's parents were transported from Germany to the Gurs concentration camp near Pau, France. Rothschild's maternal grandfather died from starvation in Gurs before her maternal grandmother was sent to

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

and exterminated. Two maternal aunts managed to escape to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

and survived

The Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. After

Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

and Max's detention in

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

, Rothschild's parents fled their homeland with the help of Habonim, which secured Max's release. Hoping to pass through Holland and make

aliyah ''Aliyah'' (, ; ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine (region), Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the Israel ...

Eretz Yisrael The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions ...

, they were unable to leave the country because of the limits on immigration imposed by the British

White Paper of 1939 The White Paper of 1939Occasionally also known as the MacDonald White Paper (e.g. Caplan, 2015, p.117) after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary, who presided over its creation. was a policy paper issued by the British governmen ...

. When the Nazis invaded in 1940, the couple were forced into hiding. Thirteen months after the war ended, Rothschild was born and when she was one year old, her family migrated to the United States to join her paternal grandparents in Massachusetts. They did not remain long, but immigrated to Israel within a year and a half, where Rothschild's sister, Tova Chaya "Toby" was born. Plans did not go as expected and the family soon returned to Massachusetts. A brother, Yonatan Efraim "Jonathan", joined the family and Rothschild attended first grade in suburban Boston. In 1951 the family moved to

Bergen County, New Jersey Bergen County is the List of counties in New Jersey, most populous County (United States), county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Teaneck and celebrated her bat mitzva in 1959. In high school, at River Edge, New Jersey, she met Jehuda Reinharz, a German immigrant who had recently arrived in the U.S. speaking only Hebrew and German. As she spoke both, Rothschild helped Jehuda acclimate to the United States. Furthering her education, Rothschild graduated with a BA in sociology from

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

in 1967. Later that year, on 26 November 1967 in New York City, she married Reinharz and subsequently the couple had two daughters: Yael Dalia, Naomi Carla.

Career

Reinharz began her career in 1970 at Simmons School of Social Work. Between 1972 and 1983, she taught psychology, as an assistant professor at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

. During this time, she earned her master's degree in

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

and completed a PhD from

in 1977. During her studies, she recognized how "inadequate" the representations of women's lives were in social science and was drawn to examine women history had forgotten. She taught her first course in

at Michigan in 1979. In 1982, she became an assistant professor of sociology at Brandeis; earned a full professorship in 1991, the only woman to hold the rank at the university; and became the women's studies program director 1992. That year she launched an interdisciplinary graduate program, known as ''The Scholars Program'', allowing students to earn a dual master's degree in women's studies and another field, which was the first graduate program to focus on Jewish women. In 1997, Reinharz was chosen as founding director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, after she had chaired the National Commission on American Jewish Women for the

organization An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...

. The institute was founded to focus on publishing research and organizing conferences and lectures regarding Jewish women's roles in various eras, but did not offer academic courses. The institute, devoted to the study of Jewish women, was the first of its kind and aimed as a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

enterprise to bring "women into the scholarship" of

Jewish studies Jewish studies (or Judaic studies; ) is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history (especially Jewish history), Middle Eastern studies, Asian studies, ...

. In 1998, Reinharz and the Institute partnered with the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies to found ''

Nashim __notoc__ Nashim ( "Women" or "Wives") is the third order of the Mishnah (also of the Tosefta and Talmud) containing family law. Of the six orders of the Mishnah, it is the shortest. Nashim consists of seven tractates: #'' Yevamot'' ( "Brothers ...

'', a journal on Jewish gender studies, for which she became co-editor. Between 1997 and 2000, Reinharz, after being denied help from Brandeis administrators, raised over $2.4 million to renovate a derelict building and oversaw its design and construction to house the Women's Studies Research Center. The center, which opened 19 November 2000 was created to house both the graduate program in Women's Studies and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, as well as research office space, and a reference library. In 2001, Reinharz stepped down as director of the women's studies program, when she became founding director of the center, though she continued to publish and edit the research of others, authoring over 60 articles and a dozen books throughout her career. During her academic career, Reinharz strove to develop new methodologies for social sciences. Using holistic and interdisciplinary methods, she analyzed subjects in their context and argued that methods used in the natural sciences were inadequate for studying behavior, bias and the purpose of actions. She retired in 2017 from her post as the Jacob Potofsky Professor of Sociology and as director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and in honor of the occasion ''Nashim'' dedicated its 32nd, 33rd, and 34th issues to her. Reinharz also currently serves as a member of the advisory board of the Remember the Women Institute

Selected works

* * * * * * * * * * * *

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * and * * * and * * and * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reinharz, Shulamit 1946 births Living people Dutch emigrants to the United States Barnard College alumni Brandeis University alumni University of Michigan faculty Brandeis University faculty Women's studies academics Jewish women writers American women academics American sociologists American women sociologists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers