Meet the Director
Shulamit Reinharz, Ph.D.
Shulamit Reinharz, Ph.D.
Shulamit Reinharz was born in Amsterdam, grew up in New Jersey, received her B.A. from Barnard College and her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. She was on the psychology faculty of the University of Michigan for ten years, and then returned to Brandeis as a professor of sociology.In the 1990s Professor Reinharz directed the Women’s Studies Program at Brandeis University. Among many other innovations, she created its multi-faceted graduate program, including the first graduate program in Jewish Women’s Studies in the world. She also initiated the Student-Scholar Partnership Program, the course on the Prevention of Violence against Women and Children, and created the National Board for Women’s Studies.
Professor Reinharz chaired Hadassah’s National Commission on American Jewish Women in 1993. Subsequently, in 1997, she established the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, which she heads to this day.
In 2001 she opened the Women’s Studies Research Center (WSRC) in a 10,000 square foot facility that she designed and for which she raised all the funds. The Kniznick Gallery, one of the few galleries devoted to work by and about women, is part of the Feminist National Art Project, and sits at the heart of the WSRC.
The holder of the Jacob Potofsky Chair of Sociology, Professor Reinharz has published eleven books including The JGirls’ Guide (a finalist for the Koret Prize), the highly praised American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise and most recently, Observing the Observer: Understanding Our Selves in Field Research. Her forthcoming books include Today I am a Woman: Stories of Bat Mitzvah around the World (edited with Barbara Vinick, Indiana University Press) and One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life: A Century of Crises and Reinvention (edited with Michal Palgi, Transaction Books), among others.
Shulamit Reinharz is the mother of two daughters and is married to Jehuda Reinharz, former president of Brandeis University.