Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (May 20, 1932 – December 8, 2009) was the Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society at Columbia University, a position he held from 1980 to 2008. He was succeeded by Elisheva Carlebach Yoffen.

Yerushalmi was born in the Bronx, New York City on May 20, 1932, to Yiddish-speaking Russian parents who had immigrated to the United States. His father was a Hebrew teacher.

In 1953, Yerushalmi received his bachelor’s degree from Yeshiva University. Later, in 1957 he was ordained as a rabbi. He received a doctorate from Columbia University in 1966. Salo Baron was his dissertation director. From the time of receiving his doctorate until his appointment to the Columbia faculty, Yerushalmi taught at Harvard University, where he was Jacob E. Safra Professor of Jewish History and Sephardic Civilization and chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

Professor Yerushalmi died of emphysema on December 8, 2009.

• Israel, der unerwartete Staat, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006, ISBN 978-3-16-148860-3 (English translation: Israel, The Unexpected State) - 2005
• Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory - 1996 (University of Washington Press, Seattle 1982)
• Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable – 1993
• Haggadah and History - 1975
• From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto - 1971

• National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish History category for Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, 1983
• National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish Thought category for Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable, 1992
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• National Foundation for Jewish Culture: Jewish Cultural Achievement Award, 1995
• Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research
• Honorary Member of the Portuguese Academy of History in Lisbon
• Newman Medal for Distinguished Achievement by the City University of New York, 1976
• Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1976–77
• Rockefeller Fellow in the Humanities, 1983–84
• Guggenheim Fellow, 1989–90
• The Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize by the University of Tübingen, 2005