{{Short description|American historian (1936–2024)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2022}} {{Infobox academic | name = Robert Chazan | image = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1936|04|25}} | birth_place = Albany, New York, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2024|02|12|1936|04|25}} | death_place = | occupation = Historian, researcher, author, and rabbi | alma_mater = Columbia College (BA)<br/>Jewish Theological Seminary (Semikhah)<br/>Columbia University (MA), (PhD) | workplaces = New York University | thesis_title = | thesis_year = | awards = National Jewish Book Award (1988) }}
'''Robert Leon Chazan''' (April 25, 1936 – February 12, 2024) was an American historian who was the S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.<ref>{{cite web|title=Robert Chazan|url=http://hebrewjudaic.as.nyu.edu/object/robertchazan.html|website=New York University|accessdate=12 March 2015}}</ref>
==Life and career== Robert Leon Chazan was born in Albany, New York on April 25, 1936.<ref>{{cite web |title=Robert L Chazan |url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/4184327:61667?tid=&pid=&queryId=ccdb4cf5-d06f-4305-8df9-b5d29ff0e6ae&_phsrc=Dqh7380&_phstart=successSource |publisher=New York State, Birth Index, 1881–1942 |access-date=25 February 2024}}</ref><ref name="DM">{{cite web |title=Robert Leon Chazan |url=https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/brookline-ma/robert-chazan-11665274 |website=Dignity Memorial |access-date=25 February 2024}}</ref>
According to Andrew Gow writing in Speculum, Chazan is, "a distinguished scholar in the field of Jewish history and Christian-Jewish relations in the high Middle Ages."<ref name=Gow>{{cite journal|last1=Gow|first1=Arthur Colin|title=Reviewed Work: Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism. by Robert Chazan|journal=Speculum|date=July 1999|volume=74|issue=3|pages=718–720|jstor=2886782|doi=10.2307/2886782}}</ref>
A festschrift published in Chazan's honor and edited by David Engel, Lawrence Schiffman, Elliot Wolfson, and Yechiel Schur, lists, "the history of the Jewish communities in Western Christendom during the Middle Ages, Jewish-Christian interactions in medieval Europe, medieval Jewish Biblical exegesis and religious literature, and historical representations of the experience of medieval Jewry," as 4 of the scholarly concerns that have been central to Chazan's work.<ref name=Engel>{{cite book|last1=Engel|first1=David|title=Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History|date=2012|publisher=Brill|isbn=9789004222335}}</ref>
Chazan died on February 12, 2024, at the age of 87.<ref>{{cite web |title=Robert Chazan, 87, NYU scholar of medieval Jewry who helped build field of Jewish studies |url=https://www.jta.org/2024/02/13/obituaries/robert-chazan-87-nyu-scholar-of-medieval-jewry-who-helped-build-field-of-jewish-studies |website=JTA |access-date=15 February 2024 |date=13 February 2024}}</ref><ref name="DM"/>
==Bibliography== *''The Trial of the Talmud: Paris, 1240'' (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2012) *''Reassessing Jewish Life in Medieval Europe'' (Cambridge University Press, 2010) *{{cite book|title=The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom|publisher=Cambridge Medieval Textbooks|year=2006|isbn=0521616646|url=https://archive.org/details/jewsofmedievalwe0000chaz|url-access=registration}} *''Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) *''God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First-Crusade Narratives'' (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000) *''Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism'' (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997) * {{cite book|title=In the Year 1096: The Jews and the First Crusade|publisher=Jewish Publication Society of America|year=1996|isbn=0827609876|url=https://archive.org/details/inyear1096firstc00chaz|url-access=registration}} * {{cite book|title=Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath|publisher=University of California Press|year=1992|isbn=0520911326|url=https://archive.org/details/barcelonabeyondd0000chaz|url-access=registration}} *''Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response'' (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989) * {{cite book|title=European Jewry and the First Crusade|publisher=University of California Press|year=1987|isbn=0520055667|url=https://archive.org/details/europeanjewryfir0000chaz|url-access=registration}} *{{cite book|title=Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages|publisher=Behrman House|year=1980|isbn=0874413028|url=https://archive.org/details/churchstatejewin0000unse|url-access=registration}} * {{cite book|title=Modern Jewish History|publisher=Schocken Books|year=1975|isbn=0805235663|url=https://archive.org/details/modernjewishhist0000chaz|url-access=registration}} *''Medieval Jewry in Northern France'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974)
== Awards == 1988: National Jewish Book Award in Jewish History for ''European Jewry and the First Crusade''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners?category=30765|title=Past Winners|last=|first=|date=|website=Jewish Book Council|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-01-23}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chazan, Robert}} Category:1936 births Category:2024 deaths Category:American medievalists Category:New York University faculty Category:Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Category:Columbia College, Columbia University alumni Category:Jewish Theological Seminary of America alumni Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Category:Writers from Albany, New York