Paula E. Hyman ז״ל
Yale University, Jewish Studies, Emeritus
- [this page is curated by Mr. Menachem Butler of Cambridge, MA, with the support of the family of Professor Paula E. H... more[this page is curated by Mr. Menachem Butler of Cambridge, MA, with the support of the family of Professor Paula E. Hyman ז״ל]
Professor Paula E. Hyman (1946-2011) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned a BA from Radcliffe College in 1968, and a PhD from Columbia University in 1975. During high school and college, she also studied at Hebrew Teachers College of Boston (now Hebrew College), earning a B.J.Ed. in 1966.
Hyman’s dissertation on the Jews in France after the Dreyfus Affair was published in 1979 as *From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking of French Jewry, 1906–1939*. Previously, while still a graduate student, Hyman and two colleagues, Charlotte Baum and Sonya Michel, published a pioneering work on *The Jewish Woman in America* (1976). This project was a scholarly reflection of her deep commitment to and involvement in Jewish feminism. Throughout her career, Hyman continued to publish on both French Jewry and Jewish women’s history, including influential works such as *The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace: Acculturation and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century* (1991), *Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History* (1995), and the two-volume historical encyclopedia *Jewish Women in America* (1997), co-edited with Deborah Dash Moore.
After serving as assistant professor of history at Columbia (1974–1981), Hyman became dean of the Seminary College of Jewish Studies, the first woman to hold the position, and associate professor of History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1981–1986). In 1986, she became the Lucy Moses Professor of Modern Jewish History at Yale University, where she served for more than a decade as chair of Jewish Studies. She remained at Yale until her untimely death in 2011.
Hyman received many distinguished prizes and awards, including honorary degrees from the Hebrew Union College (2002) and The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (2000), and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Historical Studies from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture (2004). She was also elected President of the American Academy for Jewish Research, the first woman to serve in that capacity.
Known as a devoted teacher and mentor as well as a pioneering scholar, Hyman’s legacy has been honored with the establishment of a mentorship program in her name, now under the auspices of the Association for Jewish Studies.edit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Paula E. Hyman, “Coda – From Tradition to Radicalism: Jewish Women in Pre-Holocaust Poland,” in Michael A. Meyer and David N. Myers, eds., Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity – Rethinking An Old Opposition: Essays in Honor of David Ellenson (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2014), 320-332more