Prof. Matthias B. Lehmann

Biography

Matthias B. Lehmann is a German-American historian specializing in modern Jewish history. His research focuses on the history of Jews in the nineteenth century, Jewish philanthropy and its international networks, and Sephardic cultural history. After studying in Freiburg, Jerusalem, Madrid, and Berlin, he received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin in 2002. Lehmann was a professor of Jewish studies and history at Indiana University, Bloomington (2002–2012) and held the Teller Family Chair in Jewish History at the University of California, Irvine (2012–2023). Since 2023, he has been Professor of Modern Jewish Cultural and Social History and Director of the Martin Buber Institute at the University of Cologne. Lehmann is an elected member of the American Academy of Jewish Research and editor of the journal *Jewish Social Studies*.

Selected Publications

Books

— Jewish History: From Antiquity to the Present (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2025).

— *The Baron: Maurice de Hirsch and the Jewish Nineteenth Century* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022).

— Edited with Jessica Marglin, *Jews and the Mediterranean* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020).

— with John Efron and Steven Weitzman, *The Jews: A History* (New York and London: Routledge, third edition, 2019)

— *Emissaries from the Holy Land: The Sephardic Diaspora and the Practice of Pan-Judaism in the Eighteenth Century* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014).

— *Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005). 

Articles (Selected)

— “Defying the Logic of the Nation-State: Jewish Internationalism and a Contested Election in the Alliance Israélite Universelle,” *Jewish Quarterly Review* 115:2 (2025), 267–298.

— “Rethinking Sephardic Secularism: Social Conflict and Anticlericalism in *El Correo de Viena*,” *El Prezente: Journal for Sephardic Studies* 14–15 (2020–21), 90–103.

— “Baron Hirsch, the Jewish Colonization Association, and the Future of the Jews,” *Jewish Studies Quarterly* 27:1 (2020), 73–102.

— “‘‘A New Book in Jewish Affairs Begins’: Maurice de Hirsch and the Waning Power of Jewish Philanthropy at the Fin-de-Siècle,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 17:4 (2018), 472–486.

— “La Puerta de la Franquía: Livorno and Pan-Jewish Networks of Beneficence in the Eighteenth Century,” in *Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century*, ed. Francesca Bregoli, Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, and Guri Schwarz (New York: Palgrave, 2018), 39–57.

— “The Balkans and Southeastern Europe,” in *Cambridge History of Judaism*, vol. 8, eds. Mitchell Hart and Tony Michels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 257–273.

— “Linguistic Transformations: Ladino,” in *Cambridge History of Judaism*, vol. 7, eds. Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 104–132.

— “Networks of Patronage and the Birth of Two Ladino Newspapers,” in *Sepharad as Imagined Community*, ed. Mahir ?aul and José Ignacio Hualde (New York: Peter Lang, 2017), 133–146.

— “Rabbinic Emissaries from Palestine and the Making of a Modern Jewish Diaspora: A Philanthropic Network in the Eighteenth Century,” in: Envisioning Judaism: Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. Ra’anan Boustan, Klaus Hermann, Reimund Leicht, Annette Yoshiko Reed, and Giuseppe Veltri (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), vol. 2, 1228–1246.

— “Jewish Nationalism in Ladino: Jacob Moshe Hay Altarats’ *Zikhron yerushalayim*,” *Jewish Studies Quarterly* 17:2 (2010), 146–159.

— “Rethinking Sephardi Identity: Jews and Other Jews in Ottoman Palestine,” *Jewish Social Studies* 15:1 (2008), 81–109.

— “Levantinos and Other Jews: Reading H.Y.D. Azulai’s Travel Diary,” *Jewish Social Studies* 13:3 (2007), 1–34.

— “A Livornese ‘Port Jew’ and the Sephardim of the Ottoman Empire,” *Jewish Social Studies* 11:2 (2005), 51–76.

— “Representations and Transformation of Knowledge in Judeo-Spanish Ethical Literature: The Case of Eli‘ezer and Judah Papo’s ‘Pele Yo‘ets’,” in Jewish Studies Between the Disciplines, ed. Klaus Hermann et al. (E. J. Leiden: Brill, 2003), 299–324.

— “The Intended Reader of Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Judeo-Spanish Reading Culture,” Jewish History 16 (2002), 283–307.

— “Two Perceptions of Change in Judeo-Spanish Rabbinic Literature,” *Sefarad* 6 (2000), 95–122.

— “Islamic Legal Consultation and the Muslim-Jewish ‘Convivencia’,” *Jewish Studies Quarterly* 6 (1999), 25–54.

— “Franz Rosenzweig’s Critique of Islam in *The Star of Redemption*,” *Jewish Studies Quarterly* 1 (1993/94), 340–361.