VIDEO: Michael Wyschogrod, Theologian Who Escaped Nazis, Dies at 87
Michael Wyschogrod Image by YouTube
Michael Wyschogrod, an influential German-born Jewish philosophy professor and theologian has died at 87.
Wyschogrod died on Thursday in Boston, H-Judaic, an email group for Jewish studies professors, announced. He taught philosophy at various colleges in the City University of New York system and served as head of the philosophy department at Baruch College. He later moved to the University of Houston.
A modern Orthodox Jew, Wyschogrod focused in his scholarly work on Jewish theology and religious dialogue between Christians and Jews. His books include “The Body of Faith: God in the People Israel” and “Abraham’s Promise: Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations.”
Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis University professor of Jewish history and chair of H-Judaic, described Wyschogrod as “one of the premier Jewish theologians of our time.”
The Berlin-born Wyschogrod fled the Nazis with his family in 1939, at age 10.
He studied at Yeshiva University with Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, considered by many to be the founder of modern Orthodoxy, and earned a doctorate at Columbia University. In a 2009 article in the First Things scholarly journal, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, who wrote his doctoral dissertation about Wyschogrod, described the scholar as “perhaps the most original Jewish theologian of the past half century.”
In an interview posted last year on YouTube, Wyschogrod described his experience fleeing Nazi Europe.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
