PROFESSOR MENACHEM STERN

Menachem Stern studied at the Bialystok Hebrew Gymnasium for seven years, before emigrating to Eretz Yisrael with his parents in 1938. One was always aware of his Bialystok roots. After finishing his High School studies in Tel-Aviv, he studied at the Hebrew University, and in 1960 received his doctorate and joined the academic staff as lecturer in the Department of History of the Jewish People, and in 1971 was appointed as a full-time Professor. He was considered to be the foremost scholar in our day of the Second Temple Period, one of the greatest Jewish historians and senior experts of Hellenistic and Latin Civilization, and published dozens of articles and research papers on the Hasmonean Period and the History of the Jews at the time of the Second Temple. In his research studies, he achieved that rare feat of combining a classic form of textual criticism with profound historical analysis. Professor Stern, who was a visiting Fellow in many research institutions, was also a member of the Bialystok Archives Committee of the National University Library in Jerusalem (the founder of the Archive had been Bialystok born, Dr. Joseph Chazanowitz). Professor Stern was a member of the Executive Committee and on the Academic Council of "Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi", Chairman of the Israel History Society, amongst the mainstays of the Shazar Centre, and one of the editors of the Journal "Zion". He was modest in demeanour, eschewing academic pomposity, an amiable, peace-loving man. On 22 July 1989, as he was walking from his house to the National Library by way of the Valley of the Cross, he was stabbed to death by an Arab. Blessed be his memory.