In Memoriam: Benny Kraut, 1947-2008 (In Memoriam‪)‬

With the death of Benny Kraut in the early fall of 2008, the community of historians of American Judaism lost one of its ablest and most beloved interpreters. Born in 1947 in Munich, where his parents were consigned to a displaced persons' camp, then raised in Canada, Kraut was serving as professor of history at Queens College of the City University of New York and was also a member of the faculty of CUNY's Graduate Center. From 1986 until 1991, he edited the book review section of this journal. Upon the news of his death, the interim chairperson of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, Jeffrey S. Gurock, did not exaggerate in describing Kraut as "a distinguished scholar and intellectual who wrote with elegance and taught with great style and enthusiasm." (1) His higher education and his academic career were pursued in the United States. Kraut graduated summa cum laude in philosophy from Yeshiva University in 1968, then earned his M. A. in 1970 and five years later his Ph. D. from Brandeis University's Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. Ben Halpern supervised Kraut's doctoral dissertation. Beginning in 1976, and for over two decades, Kraut directed Judaic Studies and taught Jewish history at the University of Cincinnati. He came to Queens College in 1998 to teach in the Department of History. At both Cincinnati and Queens, Kraut taught a prodigious variety of courses, including the history of Jewish civilization (from the Biblical through the rabbinic periods, from the middle ages down through the modern era); American Jewish history; the Book of Job and the problem of evil; the history of antisemitism and other Jewish-Christian encounters; and the history of Zionism. Both at Cincinnati and at Queens he was beloved by his students.