Samuel Heilman
AUTHOR

Samuel Heilman

Religion & Spirituality
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Samuel Heilman is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College and Emeritus Harold Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies, Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem, a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the People’s Republic of China where he lectured at Nanjing, Henan, and Shanghai Universities as well as at the Universities of Wroclaw, Warsaw and Jagellonian University in Krakow Poland. He has also been Scheinbrun Visiting Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, visiting professor of social anthropology at Tel Aviv University, and a Fulbright visiting professor at the Universities of New South Wales and Melbourne in Australia. Heilman is a prominent figure in the sociology of Jewry, known for his extensive research on Orthodox Judaism and contemporary Jewish life His academic focus has been on the social dynamics within Jewish communities, particularly those of Orthodox and Hasidic groups. He is the author of numerous articles and reviews as well as thirteen books: Synagogue Life, The People of the Book, The Gate Behind the Wall, A Walker in Jerusalem, Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America (co-authored with Steven M. Cohen) , Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry, Portrait of American Jewry: The Last Half of the 20th Century, The Gate Behind the Wall, A Walker in Jerusalem, When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son,  Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy and (with Menachem Friedman) The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Who Will Lead us: The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America and is co-author of Hasidism: A New History. His most recent book is (with Mucahit Bilici) Following Similar Paths: What American Jews and Muslims Can Learn from One Another. He is also editor of Death, Bereavement and Mourning What We Have Learned after 9/11, His book, The Gate Behind the Wall was honored with the Present Tense Magazine Literary Award for the best book of 1984 in the “Religious Thought” category. A Walker in Jerusalem received the National Jewish Book Award for 1987 and Defenders of the Faith was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for 1992. Portrait of American Jewry: The Last Half of the 20th Century was honored with the 1996 [first] Gratz College Tuttleman Library Centennial Award. When a Jew Dies won both the Koret Award in 2003 and the National Jewish Book Award in 2004. Heilman is also recipient of fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Mellon Foundation. He received a Distinguished Faculty Award from the City University of New York in 1985 and 1987. He is listed in Who’s Who in the East, Contemporary Authors and Who’s Who in World Jewry. After retiring in 2020 to Jerusalem, he now is a Library Fellow in the Polonsky Library at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.
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