Michael A. Meyer


Michael Albert Meyer is a German-born American historian of modern Jewish history. He taught for over 50 years at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is currently the Adolph S. Ochs Emeritus Professor of Jewish History at that institution. He was one of the founders of the Association for Jewish Studies, and served as its president from 1978 to 1980. He also served as International President of the Leo Baeck Institute from 1992 to 2013. He has published many books and articles, most notably on the history of German Jews, the origins and history of the Reform movement in Judaism, and Jewish people and faith confronting modernity. He is a three-time National Jewish Book Award winner.

Life and education

Meyer was born in Berlin and lived with his family there until their escape from Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941.
In Germany, his father was an attorney, who subsequently had his law license revoked by the Nazis and spent time in forced labor before managing to take his family to the United States via Spain.
Meyer grew up in Los Angeles, California, graduated with highest honors from UCLA and received his PhD in Jewish history from the Hebrew Union College. Upon graduation, in 1964, the then-President of HUC, Nelson Glueck, recruited Meyer to join the faculty. Meyer taught there for his entire career, starting in Los Angeles, before moving to the Cincinnati campus in 1967. He has also taught repeatedly over the years at HUC's campus in Jerusalem.
Meyer has also been affiliated with the Hebrew University Institute for Advanced Studies, the University of Pennsylvania, the Be'er Sheva University, Antioch College and the University of Haifa.
Meyer's son is United States government official Jonathan Meyer, 6th General Counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Scholarship

Michael A. Meyer is a leading historian of modern Jewish history, particularly noted for his work on German Jewry, the development of Reform Judaism, and the historiography of modern Judaism. His scholarship is widely regarded as foundational for the study of Jewish religious and intellectual transformation from the Enlightenment through the twentieth century.
After completing his doctoral dissertation, Meyer published it under the title '. The book, which examined the emergence of modern Jewish identity within the context of German intellectual and cultural life, won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought in 1968 and has remained continuously in print for decades. Meyer’s subsequent monograph ' is widely considered the standard historical account of Reform Judaism, tracing its ideological, liturgical, and institutional development from nineteenth-century Germany to the modern period. Other notable books include ', which won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought in 1989, and the essay collection '.
Beyond his monographic work, Meyer has made major contributions to the historiography of Judaism itself. A substantial portion of his scholarship addresses the intellectual legacy of Wissenschaft des Judentums and the methodological tensions between historical scholarship, religious commitment, and modern Jewish identity. His essays on Jewish historiography have been influential in framing debates about continuity, rupture, and self-understanding in modern Jewish historical writing.
Meyer has also played a central role as an editor and scholarly mediator within modern Jewish studies. He served as general editor of the multi-volume history of German Jewry published in parallel editions as Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit, German-Jewish History in Modern Times, and German-Jewish History in Modern Times. The German edition comprised four volumes—'; '; '; and '. The English edition appeared in four corresponding volumes—'; '; '; and '. The Hebrew edition was likewise issued in four volumes—'; '; '; and , 1918–1945. Published between 1996 and 2005, the series constitutes a comprehensive collaborative synthesis of the social, cultural, religious, and political history of German Jewry from the early modern period through the Holocaust and has become a standard reference work in the field.
In addition to this project, Meyer edited or co-edited major collective volumes such as ', ', ', and , underscoring his role in shaping the direction of Jewish historical scholarship across linguistic, national, and generational boundaries. His scholarly activity further includes translations of key works by Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem, through which he helped make German-Jewish intellectual traditions accessible to an English-speaking readership.
A prolific author, Meyer has published hundreds of scholarly articles, encyclopedia entries, reviews, and essays in multiple languages over the course of his career, which are all available at .

Selected awards and honors

  • National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish Thought category - 1968
  • National Jewish Book Award in Jewish History – 1989
  • National Foundation for Jewish Culture's Scholarship Award in Historical Studies – 1996
  • National Jewish Book Award in Jewish History – 1997
  • Honorary Doctor of Hebrew Letters degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America – 2001
  • Moses Mendelssohn Award of the Leo Baeck Institute – 2015
In 2008, Meyer was honored with a Festschrift edited by Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner, entitled . The volume brings together contributions by scholars from Europe, Israel, and North America and addresses themes central to Meyer’s scholarly work, including German-Jewish history, Reform Judaism, Jewish historiography, and the religious and intellectual challenges of modernity. The essays collectively situate Meyer’s scholarship within broader debates in modern Jewish studies and reflect his influence across multiple subfields and academic generations.

Selected publications

Selected articles
  • “.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 11 : 137–170.
  • “.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 16 : 19–41.
  • “?” Judaism 24, no. 3 : 329–338.
  • “.” AJS Review 6 : 61–86.
  • “.” Hebrew Union College Annual 53 : 309–316.
  • “.” Modern Judaism 6, no. 1 : 1–11.
  • “.” History and Theory 27, no. 4 : 160–175.
  • “.” Modern Judaism 9, no. 2 : 151–164.
  • “.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 35 : 3–16.
  • “‘.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 41 : 51–63.
  • “.” In In Search of Jewish Community, edited by Michael Brenner and Derek J. Penslar, 15–35. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
  • “.” Modern Judaism 19, no. 2 : 107–117.
  • “.” Modern Judaism 24, no. 2 : 105–119.
  • “.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 51 : 3–10.
  • “.” Jewish Quarterly Review 97, no. 4 : 660–672.
  • “.” In Gender and Jewish History, edited by Marion A. Kaplan and Deborah Dash Moore, 139–157. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
  • “.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 57 : 87–103.

Books

'. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967.
— : Jerusalem: Carmel, 1990.
— German edition: '. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2011.
'. New York: Behrman House, 1974.
', ed. Michael A. Meyer. Jerusalem: Shazar, 1979.
'. New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1981.
'. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
— : Jerusalem: Shazar, 1989.
— German edition: '. Vienna: Böhlau, 2000.
'. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1990.
— German edition: '. Frankfurt am Main: Jüdischer Verlag, 1992.
'. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
'. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992.
'. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1994.
Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit, ed. Michael A. Meyer on behalf of the Leo Baeck Institute, with the collaboration of Michael Brenner. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1996–1997.
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German-Jewish History in Modern Times, ed. Michael A. Meyer; Michael Brenner, assistant editor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996–1998.
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German-Jewish History in Modern Times, ed. Michael A. Meyer. Jerusalem: Shazar, 2000–2005.
— Vols.,,,
', ed. Michael A. Meyer and W. Gunther Plaut. New York: UAHC Press, 2000.
'. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001.
— : Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2006.
'. Munich: Lehrstuhl für Jüdische Geschichte und Literatur, 2003.
, ed. Michael A. Meyer in collaboration with Bärbel Such. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2003.
'. New York: Association for Progressive Judaism, 2007.
', ed. Michael A. Meyer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007.
'. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.
— : Jerusalem: Carmel, 2023.
', ed. Anne O. Albert, Noah S. Gerber, and Michael A. Meyer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022.
'. New York: CCAR Press, 2025.