Rachel Feldhay Brenner

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Rachel Feldhay Brenner
Born1946 (1946)
Zabrze, Poland
DiedFebruary 4, 2021 (aged 74–75)
Madison, Wisconsin
Occupation(s)College professor, writer, scholar

Rachel Feldhay Brenner (1946 – February 4, 2021) was a Polish-born college professor, writer, and scholar of Jewish literature. She was president of the Association for Israel Studies from 2007 to 2009.

Early life and education[edit]

Rachel Feldhay was born in Zabrze, Poland, the daughter of Michael Feldhay and Helena Feldhay.[1] She moved to Israel with her family in 1956.[2] She earned a bachelor's degree at Hebrew University, a master's degree at Tel Aviv University, and a PhD at York University.[3][4]

Career[edit]

Brenner joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin in 1992, in the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies. She chaired the department from 2004 to 2007. She was a senior fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities,[4] a fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,[5] and president of the Association for Israel Studies from 2007 to 2009.[6] She served on the board of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA).[3] "It is my belief," she explained of her work, "that literature affects human consciousness and effects change in social practices, yet its impact is imperceptible, often delayed, and hard to measure."[7]

Publications[edit]

Brenner published seven books, and more than 80 articles in academic journals[2] including Modern Judaism,[8] Comparative Literature Studies,[9] Studies in American Jewish Literature,[10] Israel Studies,[11] Slavic Review,[12] AJS Review,[13] Jewish Studies Quarterly,[14] Discourse,[15] Studies in Religion,[16] Holocaust and Genocide Studies,[17] and Critical Inquiry.[18] In 1992 she won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for literary criticism.[3]

Books[edit]

  • Assimilation and Assertion: The Response to the Holocaust in Mordecai Richler’s Writing (1989)[19]
  • A.M. Klein, The Father of Canadian Jewish Literature: Essays in the Poetics of Humanistic Passion (1990)[20]
  • Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust: Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, and Etty Hillesum (1997)[21]
  • Inextricably Bonded—Israel Jewish and Arab Writers Re-Visioning Culture (2003)[22]
  • The Freedom to Write: The Woman-Artist and the World in Ruth Almog’s Fiction (2008, in Hebrew)[23]
  • The Ethics of Witnessing: The Holocaust in Polish Writers’ Diaries from Warsaw, 1939-1945 (2014)[24]
  • Polish Literature and the Holocaust: Eyewitness Testimonies, 1942–1947 (2019)[25]

Selected articles[edit]

  • "A. M. Klein's 'The Hitleriad': Against the Silence of the Apocalypse" (1990)[10]
  • "Edith Stein: A reading of her feminist thought" (1994)[16]
  • "Between Identity and Anonymity: Art and History in Aharon Megged's Foiglman" (1995)[13]
  • "Back to the Future: Evolution of the A/Teleological in Recent Israeli Fiction" (1996)[15]
  • "Writing Herself against History: Anne Frank's Self-Portrait as a Young Artist" (1996)[8]
  • "Mother's Curse or Cursed Mother: Forgotten Stories in Forbidden Languages in Meir Shalev's Esau" (1997)[14]
  • "'Hidden Transcripts' Made Public: Israeli Arab Fiction and Its Reception" (1999)[18]
  • "The Search for Identity in Israeli Arab Fiction: Atallah Mansour, Emile Habiby, and Anton Shammas" (2001)[11]
  • "Voices from Destruction: Two Eyewitness Testimonies from the Stanisławów Ghetto" (2008)[17]
  • "Ideology and Its Ethics: Maria Dąbrowska’s Jewish (and Polish) Problem" (2011)[12]

Personal life and legacy[edit]

Brenner died from cancer in 2021, aged 74 years, in Madison, Wisconsin.[3][26][27] The Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award in Polish-Jewish Studies was founded in 2021, in her memory, by the PIASA.[28]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Rachel Brenner Obituary". Madison.com, via Legacy. February 14, 2021. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  2. ^ a b Harris, Rachel S. (2021-01-02). "Rachel Feldhay Brenner: In Memoriam". East European Jewish Affairs. 51 (1): 137–138. doi:10.1080/13501674.2021.1953302. ISSN 1350-1674. S2CID 238861169.
  3. ^ a b c d "Remembering Rachel Feldhay Brenner". Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  4. ^ a b "Rachel Feldhay Brenner". Institute for Research in the Humanities. 2019-06-17. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  5. ^ "Dr. Rachel Feldhay Brenner". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  6. ^ Scham, Paul L.; Peri, Yoram (2021-03-01). "Editors' Note and In Memoriam: Rachel Feldhay Brenner". Israel Studies Review. 36 (1): v–xii. doi:10.3167/isr.2021.360101. ISSN 2159-0370. S2CID 236660148.
  7. ^ Wineke, William R. (2004-03-21). "The effects of writing in Mideast". Wisconsin State Journal. p. 61. Retrieved 2022-01-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1996). "Writing Herself against History: Anne Frank's Self-Portrait as a Young Artist". Modern Judaism. 16 (2): 105–134. doi:10.1093/mj/16.2.105. ISSN 0276-1114. JSTOR 1396450.
  9. ^ Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1994). "The Grammar of the Portrait: The Construct of the Artist in David Grossman, "The Book of Internal Grammar", and James Joyce, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"". Comparative Literature Studies. 31 (3): 270–291. ISSN 0010-4132. JSTOR 40246949.
  10. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1990). "A. M. Klein's "The Hitleriad": Against the Silence of the Apocalypse". Studies in American Jewish Literature (1981-). 9 (2): 228–241. ISSN 0271-9274. JSTOR 41206369.
  11. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (2001). "The Search for Identity in Israeli Arab Fiction: Atallah Mansour, Emile Habiby, and Anton Shammas". Israel Studies. 6 (3): 91–112. doi:10.2979/ISR.2001.6.3.91. ISSN 1084-9513. JSTOR 27793855. S2CID 144378670.
  12. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (2011). "Ideology and Its Ethics: Maria Da̧browska's Jewish (and Polish) Problem". Slavic Review. 70 (2): 399–421. doi:10.5612/slavicreview.70.2.0399. ISSN 0037-6779. S2CID 164045059.
  13. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1995). "Between Identity and Anonymity: Art and History in Aharon Megged's "Foiglman"". AJS Review. 20 (2): 359–377. doi:10.1017/S036400940000698X. ISSN 0364-0094. JSTOR 1486822.
  14. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1997). "Mother's Curse or Cursed Mother: Forgotten Stories in Forbidden Languages in Meir Shalev's Esau". Jewish Studies Quarterly. 4 (4): 380–400. ISSN 0944-5706. JSTOR 40753199.
  15. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1996). "Back to the Future: Evolution of the A/Teleological in Recent Israeli Fiction". Discourse. 19 (1): 81–104. ISSN 1522-5321. JSTOR 41389433.
  16. ^ a b Feldhay Brenner, Rachel (March 1994). "Edith Stein: A reading of her feminist thought". Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses. 23 (1): 43–56. doi:10.1177/000842989402300103. ISSN 0008-4298. S2CID 220897567.
  17. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (2008-10-01). "Voices from Destruction: Two Eyewitness Testimonies from the Stanisławów Ghetto". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 22 (2): 320–339. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcn028. ISSN 8756-6583.
  18. ^ a b Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1999). ""Hidden Transcripts" Made Public: Israeli Arab Fiction and Its Reception". Critical Inquiry. 26 (1): 85–108. doi:10.1086/448954. ISSN 0093-1896. JSTOR 1344147. S2CID 161122252.
  19. ^ Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1989). Assimilation and assertion : the response to the Holocaust in Mordecai Richler's writings. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0811-5. OCLC 18106417.
  20. ^ Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1990). A.M. Klein, the father of Canadian Jewish literature : essays in the poetics of humanistic passion. Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press. ISBN 0-88946-259-3. OCLC 20823867.
  21. ^ Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (1997). Writing as resistance : four women confronting the Holocaust : Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01623-X. OCLC 34767437.
  22. ^ Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (2003). Inextricably bonded : Israeli Arab and Jewish writers re-visioning culture. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-18963-1. OCLC 298789266.
  23. ^ פלדחי ברנר, רחל (2008). <>. חנה נוה. הקיבוץ המאוחד. ISBN 978-965-02-0457-0. OCLC 385562455.
  24. ^ Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (2014). The Ethics of Witnessing : The Holocaust in Polish Writers' Diaries from Warsaw, 1939-1945. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-6763-6. OCLC 887183549.
  25. ^ Brenner, Rachel Feldhay (2019). Polish Literature and the Holocaust : Eyewitness Testimonies, 1942-1947. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-3982-4. OCLC 1086157448.
  26. ^ Lassner, Phyllis (2022). "Rachel Feldhay Brenner: In Memoriam". Journal of Jewish Identities. 15 (1): 1–3. doi:10.1353/jji.2022.0002. ISSN 1946-2522. S2CID 245350971.
  27. ^ Sarna, Jonathan D. (February 9, 2021). "Passing of Prof. Rachel Feldhay Brenner". H-Judaic. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  28. ^ Dabrowski, Patrice (September 14, 2021). "Call for Nominations: The Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award in Polish-Jewish Studies". H-Poland. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
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