Abram L. Sachar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abram Leon Sachar (February 15, 1899 - July 24, 1993[1]) was an American historian and university president. Born in New York City, his immigrant family moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1906 where his grandfather served as a Chief Rabbi[2]. After being briefly enlisted for service in World War I, Sachar went on to receive his B.A. and M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, spending his junior year studying languages at Harvard and graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1920[3].
He went to England to do his research on the Victorian House of Lords and gained his PhD at Cambridge University in 1923. He then taught history at the University of Illinois from 1923 to 1948. He also was one of the organizers of the B'nai Brith Hillel Foundation and helped establish Hillel Houses for Jewish students on the campuses of many American universities[4].Sachar also served as President of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO) from 1945 to 1948[5].
During World War II, Sachar became a national commentator on contemporary affairs while acting as a radio news analyst in Chicago and New York. He also became involved with several attempts to aid Jewish refugees and displaced persons in Europe, organizing a program to bring refugee students to the United States. Sachar was a prolific writer and speaker who continually produced new work following the publication of his first book in 1927. From the 1920s to the 1990s, Sachar frequently traveled the country as a national lecturer. Following 1927’s Factors in Modern Jewish History, which discussed the development of Jewish life since the French Revolution, Sachar produced in 1929 his well-known one volume A History of the Jews. In 1932 he edited Religion of a Modern Liberal, and in 1939 he published Sufferance is the Badge, a history of contemporary Jewish life[6].
When the American Jewish community decided to start a Jewish-sponsored, nonsectarian university, he was chosen as the first president of Brandeis University, and during his tenure from 1948 to 1968[7] he effectively built it from the ground-up into a first-class, internationally recognized teaching and research institution, by exercising his abilities as an educator, visionary, and fundraiser.
On his retirement he became chancellor of Brandeis University. During his long career he served on numerous committees and boards, was the recipient of many honors, thirty honorary degrees, and published a number of books, including A History of the Jews (1929; 5th edn 1965) and The Course of Our Times (1972).
He was the father of historian Howard M. Sachar, of the pioneering biological psychiatrist Edward J. Sachar, and of the gastroenterologist David B. Sachar. Sachar and his wife Thelma are buried near the Sachar International Institute at Brandeis University[8]
[edit] Works
- A History of the Jews. (1938; revised 1965)
- Sufferance is the Badge. (1939)
- The Course of Our Times. (1972)
- A Host at Last. (1976)
- The Redemption of the Unwanted (1984)
