Eliezer Schweid

Abstract

Abstract Eliezer Schweid was born in Jerusalem in 1929. After high school, he served in the Israeli Defense Force during the War of lndependence in 1947 and 1948. After Israel achieved independence in 1948, he joined Kibbutz Tzorah in 1949 and lived as a member of the kibbutz until 1953 when he started his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem majoring in Jewish philosophy, mysticism, and history. In 1962, he received his Ph.D. from Hebrew University for a thesis on medieval Jewish philosophy. He then became a member of the faculty of Hebrew University and also, between 1976 and 1986, taught at the Kerem Institute for Teacher Training, an innovative program that emphasized both Jewish and humanistic values. He has also held several visiting appointments, at Stanford University in 1982, at Oxford University in 1989, and at Yale University in 1992-1993. In 1994, Schweid was awarded the Israel Prize, Israel’s highest public academic honor. A prolific author, he has published numerous books and essays on the history of Jewish culture, the history of Jewish thought from biblical to modem times, Jewish national and Zionist philosophy, the social philosophy of the Jewish labor movement, modem Hebrew literature, and the philosophy of education. In addition, he has been one of the few Israeli philosophers to address the philosophical challenge posed by the uniqueness and significance of the Shoah, and to study Jewish theological responses to the Shoah.