Jehuda Reinharz to receive BNC's Abram L. Sachar Award Wednesday
Jehuda Reinharz
WALTHAM, Mass.—On Wednesday, June 9, the Brandeis National Committee (BNC) will bestow its highest honor on Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz, when he will be given the Abram L. Sachar Award at a 1:30 p.m. ceremony in Rapaporte Treasure Hall. Named after the university’s founding president, the Sachar Award is traditionally given to a man or woman of outstanding achievement and rare accomplishment in the field of education.
“President Reinharz is a historian, scholar, and educator who guides, inspires, and challenges the Brandeis community,” said Carol Kern, BNC president and university trustee. “As president of Brandeis he has continued to inspire new ideas and to challenge all possibilities. With grace and dignity, he has guided the university into the new millennium.”
“In presenting the award to President Reinharz, we wish to recognize his distinctive and personal commitment to Brandeis University, its faculty, its students, and the Brandeis National Committee,” Kern continued.
Reinharz, who was named the seventh president of Brandeis in 1994, also holds a doctorate in modern Jewish history from the university. He is the author of more than 100 articles and 23 books in various languages. His book “Jew in the Modern World” (third edition 2009) is one of the most widely adopted college texts in modern history. Reinharz is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Fairfield University, Ben Gurion University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 1992, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In 1995, Reinharz was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1999, he was elected a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, he serves on a large number of boards and advisory committees.
“I am deeply honored to be chosen for the Abram L. Sachar Medallion,” Reinharz said. “The BNC has been instrumental in the growth of Brandeis libraries since the university’s founding in 1948. It is a great source of pride to know that I will join a distinguished list of past recipients.”
Previous Sachar Award winners include: renowned historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (1977); Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author Anna Quindlen (1992); Paula Apsell ‘69, senior executive producer of the award-winning PBS science series “Nova” (1997); and Joyce Antler, the Samuel B. Lane Professor of American Jewish History and Culture and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brandeis (2008).
Click here to watch a video news story on Antler’s ceremony.
About Brandeis National Committee
Brandeis National Committee (BNC) provides philanthropic support to Brandeis University. In more than 50 chapters across the country, its membership is connected to the university through fundraising, lifelong learning, and activities that reflect the values on which the university was founded: academic excellence, social justice, and nonsectarianism. Visit the BNC’s Web site for more information.
