Professor Paula E. Hyman Doctor of Hebrew Letters, honoris causa
Reprinted from the program booklet of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
-- One Hundred Sixth Commencement Exercises, May 18, 2000
Sponsored by Mr. Alan Levine & Dr. Anne Lapidus Lerner
Blessed with depth of intelligence, clarity of thought and facility of expression, you are one of the foremost Jewish historians of the modern period.
You fused your interests in French and Jewish culture as a graduate student at Columbia University where you were awarded a PhD in Jewish history. Your dazzling scholarly attainments are reflected in the pathbreaking, highly acclaimed and meticulously researched articles and three volumes you have written about the history of modern French Jewry, most recently The Jews of Modern France.
Jewish women's history has served as another focus of your broad scholarship. Your brilliant Gender and assimilation in Modern Jewish History has altered the way in which we conceive of social and cultural change. Together with Deborah Dash Moore, you edited the award-winning two-volume Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Your innovative work has merited you many awards from institutions as distinct as Ohio State University and the American Jewish Committee.
Your life as a scholar has been augmented by the many exceptional roles you have played both within and beyond the academy. As Lucy Moses Professor of Modern Jewish History at Yale since 1986, you are the first woman to hold a chair in Jewish studies at a major American university. From 1981 to 1986 you served JTS with vigor and dedication as dean of the Seminary College of Jewish Studies, the forerunner of List College, and as associate professor of history. A founding member of Ezrat Nashim, a Jewish feminist organization that helped change the face of American Jewish life, you have continued to devote yourself to the community through your selfless contributions to your synagogue and to the Ezra Academy.
You have stunningly demonstrated that the life of the mind can be intertwined with the life of the spirit. Your supportive mentorship of the next generation of Jewish historians has, together with your own scholarship, enabled you to fulfill the biblical injunction: "binu shnot dor vador" (understand the years of each generation) (Deuteronomy 32).
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