Historian Michael Brenner has been awarded the very first Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research on the Jewish Experience, established in 2020 by the University of Vienna, Austria, and the Knapp Family Foundation. As stated on the University’s website, this prestigious award “may well be described as a Nobel Prize in the study of the Jewish experience.” The Baron Award will be presented to Prof. Brenner at a virtual ceremony in Vienna on May 25, 2021.
Michael Brenner, first laureate of the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Senior Awards 2021 (c) private
About the Award Winner
Prof. Brenner is American University’s Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies and Director of AU’s Center for Israel Studies. In addition to his positions in Washington, DC, Michael Brenner is Professor of Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich and the International President of the Leo Baeck Institute. He is a fellow of the Bavarian Academy of Science, of the American Academy for Jewish Research, and of the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana in Mantua, Italy. Michael Brenner received his PhD at Columbia University, New York, taught previously at Indiana and Brandeis Universities, and has held visiting appointments at numerous universities around the world, including Haifa, Paris, Budapest, Stanford, Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins.
About the Baron Award
The Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research of the Jewish Experience was established by the University of Vienna and the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Foundation/Knapp Family Foundation in 2020 and is awarded biannually since 2021. Honoring the legacy of historian Salo Wittmayer Baron the award recognizes achievements of the highest excellence of researchers from all fields of study whose work focuses on the relationship of Jews and non-Jews and perceptions and understandings of Judaism in the wider societies in which they live. The Baron Award may be awarded to honor the outstanding lifetime achievements of an individual scholar or in recognition of the significant impact of an original book dedicated to an aspect of the Jewish experience that demonstrates excellence in research on a national or international scale. The award consists of a monetary award ($20,000) as well as a diploma and a medal.
In addition to the Senior Scholar Award, Young Scholars Awards will be awarded to two young academics who have completed an exceptional Master’s thesis and are currently writing a PhD dissertation, or have recently completed a PhD thesis all of which are related to the Jewish experience.
Read more:
https://baronawards.univie.ac.at/