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Guido Kisch

Guido Kisch outside the Park Hotel with his wife. Image courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute.

Guido Kisch was the first recipient of an AAJR Refugee Research Fellowship. Kisch was born in Prague in 1899 to the rabbi at the Meisel Synagogue. Kisch studied at the University of Prague and later the University of Leipzig, where he studied law and political science and passed the examinations required to become a judge. He taught at the University of Königsberg and the University of Halle until he was fired by the Nazi government in 1933.

In 1935 Kisch accepted the AAJR Research Fellowship and moved to New York City, where he taught Jewish history at the Jewish Institute of Religion/Hebrew Union College. In the 1950s, he served as vice-president of AAJR. In 1962, he returned to Europe and lived in Basel until his death in 1985.

For an example of Kisch’s scholarship, click here to view “Research in Medieval Legal History of the Jews,” published in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research in 1934-1935.