Prof. Michael Meyer, Author of New Book on Rabbi Leo Baeck

Rabbi Address, left, discusses the new biography of Rabbi Leo Baeck with its author, Prof. Michael Meyer, the Adolph S. Ochs Emeritus Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio.

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Dr. Michael Meyer, the Adolph S. Ochs Emeritus Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, discusses his new book, Rabbi Leo Baeck: Living A Religious Imperative in Troubled Times. The book traces the life of  one of the most important Jewish figures of prewar Germany, Rabbi, educator, intellectual, and community leader, Leo Baeck (1873–1956). 

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About the Guest

Michael A. Meyer, Ph.D.

Michael A. Meyer was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up in Los Angeles, where he received his B.A. (with highest honors) from UCLA.  His doctorate is from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.

From 1964 to 1967, he taught at the Los Angeles campus of HUC-JIR.  Since 1967 he has been on the faculty of HUC, Cincinnati, where he is currently the Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History Emeritus. From 2000 to 2008, he also taught every fourth semester at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem campus of HUC.

Professor Meyer’s books have won three Jewish Book Awards.  They include The Origins of the Modern Jew:  Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749-1824 (1967;  Response to Modernity:  A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (1988);  Jewish Identity in the Modern World (1990); and a collection of essays entitled Judaism Within Modernity (2001).  Among books he has edited are Ideas of Jewish History (1974); the four-volume German-Jewish History in Modern Times (1996-1998); Volume six of the collected writings of Leo Baeck (2003); and Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi: An Autobiography–the German and Early American Years (2007). He has published more than two hundred articles and longer reviews. He has also been named a Finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Book Awards in Biography by Jewish Book Council for his book, Rab­bi Leo Baeck: Liv­ing a Reli­gious Imper­a­tive in Trou­bled Times (University of Pennsylvania Press). 

From 1978 to 1980 Professor Meyer was president of the Association for Jewish Studies (the American professional society of Judaica scholars) and from 2003 to 2006 chaired the Academic ...