Rachel Feldhay Brenner

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.

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

Early life and education

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

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

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
  • 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
  • "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

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
  1. "Rachel Brenner Obituary". Madison.com, via Legacy. February 14, 2021. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  2. 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. "Remembering Rachel Feldhay Brenner". Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  4. "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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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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