Jewish Lives Biography Series Books from Yale University Press. What books have appeared in the Jewish Lives series of biographies from Yale University Press? Which Jewish person is the biography about? Who is the author of the biography?
Jewish Lives Biography Series
Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. Jewish Lives is a partnership of Yale University Press and the Leon D. Black Foundation.
Which new biography will appear in the Jewish Lives series in 2026?
The overview below shows the latest books in the Jewish Lives series. The newest biographies are at the top of the list. Links lead to detailed information about the biography, the author, and ordering options.
Mordecai M. Kaplan
Restless Soul
- Author: Jenna Weissman Joselit (United States)
- Book type: biography
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Series: Jewish Lives
- Released: March 17, 2026
- Length: 320 pages
- Format: hardcover / ebook
- Prize: $ 32.50
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol
- Content: Rabbi, writer, teacher, and thinker, Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881–1983) was one of the leading Jewish personalities of twentieth-century America. Founder of the Reconstructionist movement, he was a maverick who reshaped religious faith and practice, generating controversy at every turn. Known for his relentless energy and imagination, Kaplan redefined Jewish identity, emphasizing reason over superstition, and intellectual discovery over passive inheritance. He introduced new rituals, reevaluated the role of tradition, and advocated for a Judaism that evolved with the times and fostered inclusive community…read on >
Stephen Sondheim
Art Isn’t Easy
- Author: Daniel Okrent (United States)
- Book type: biography
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Series: Jewish Lives
- Released: March 17, 2026
- Length: 336 pages
- Format: hardcover / ebook
- Prize: $ 35.00
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol
- Content: Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021) was a towering figure in American musical theater. Celebrated for his iconic Broadway shows such as Company, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods, his accolades include eight Tony Awards, multiple Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Pulitzer Prize. In this intimate biography, Daniel Okrent follows Sondheim through the tumult of his upbringing and his parents’ divorce, his acquaintance with Oscar Hammerstein II and subsequent discovery of musical theater, and his rise to fame as both a lyricist and composer…read on >
Walter Benjamin
The Pearl Diver
- Author: Peter E. Gordon (United States)
- Book type: biography
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Series: Jewish Lives
- Released: February 24, 2026
- Length: 224 pages
- Format: hardcover / ebook
- Prize: $ 28.00
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol
- Content: Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism—his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving—that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization…read on >
Overview of all biographies in the Jewish Lives series
The overview of all biographies in the Jewish Lives series is categorized by the name of the Jewish person described in the book.
- Abraham: The First Jew, by Anthony Julius
- Rabbi Akiva: Sage of the Talmud, by Barry W. Holtz
- Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel, by Anita Shapira
- Menasseh ben Israel: Rabbi of Amsterdam, by Steven Nadler
- Judah Benjamin: Counselor to the Confederacy, by James Traub
- Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver, by Peter E. Gordon
- Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade, by Rachel Cohen
- Irving Berlin: New York Genius, by James Kaplan
- Sarah Bernardt: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt, by Robert Gottlieb
- Leonard Bernstein: An American Musician, by Allen Shawn
- Hayim Nahman Bialik: Poet of Hebrew, by Avner Holtzman
- Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist, by Pierre Birnbaum
- Franz Boas: In Praise of Open Minds, by Noga Arika
- Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet, by Jeffrey Rosen
- Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew, by Jeremy Dauber
- Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent, by Paul Mendes-Flohr
- Moshe Dayan: Israel’s Controversial Hero, by Mordechai Bar-On
- David: The Divided Heart, by David Wolpe
- Benjamin Disraeli: The Novel Politician, by David Cesarani
- Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair, by Maurice Samuels
- Albert Einstein: His Space and Times, by Steven Gimbel
- Elijah: Prophet of Transformation, by Daniel C. Matt
- Anne Frank: The Many Lives of Anne Frank, by Ruth Franklin
- Sigmund Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst, by Adam Phillips
- Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter, by Rachel Shteir
- Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life, by Vivian Gornick
- Herod the Great: Jewish King in a Roman World, by Martin Goodman
- Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One, by Mark Kurlansky
- Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern, by Francine Prose
- Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures, by Adina Hoffman
- Heinrich Heine: Writing the Revolution, by George Prochnick
- Lillian Hellman: An Imperious Life, by Dorothy Gallagher
- Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader, by Derek Penslar
- Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement, by Julian E. Zelizer
- Houdini: The Elusive American, by Adam Begley
- Jabotinsky: A Life, by Hillel Halkin
- Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch, by Yair Zakovitch
- Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt, by Saul Friedländer
- Mordecai M. Kaplan: Restless Soul, by Jenna Weissman Joselit
- Carole King: She Made the Earth Move, by Jane Eisner
- Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution, by Yehudah Mirsky
- Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker, by David Mikics
- Stan Lee: A Life in Comics, by Liel Leibovitz
- Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life, by Berel Lang
- Maimonides: Faith in Reason, by Alberto Manguel
- Man Ray: The Artist and His Shadows, by Arthur Lubow
- Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence, by Lee Siegel
- Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution, by Shlomo Avineri
- Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation, by Kenneth Turan
- Golda Meir: Israel’s Matriarch, by Deborah E. Lipstadt
- Moses Mendelssohn: Sage of Modernity, by Shmuel Feiner
- Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death, by Lillian Faderman
- Arthur Miller: American Witness, by John Lahr
- Moses: A Human Life, by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
- Amos Oz: Writer, Activist, Icon, by Robert Alter
- Marcel Proust: The Search, by Benjamin Taylor
- Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, by Itamar Rabinovich
- Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success, by Alexandra Popoff
- Walther Rathenau: Weimar’s Fallen Statesman, by Shulamit Volkov
- Sidney Reilly: Master Spy, by Benny Morris
- Admiral Hyman Rickover: Engineer of Power, by Marc Wortman
- Jerome Robbins: A Life in Dance, by Wendy Lesser
- Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World, by Hasia R. Diner
- Philip Roth: Stung by Life, by Steven J. Zipperstein
- Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in the Chapel, by Annie Cohen-Solal
- Ruth: A Migrants Tale, by Ilana Pardes
- Menachem Mendel Schneerson: Becoming the Messiah, by Ezra Glinter
- Gershom Scholem: Master of the Kabbalah, by David Biale
- Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream, by Michael Shnayerson
- Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom, by Steven Weitzman
- Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn.t Easy, by Daniel Okrent
- Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films, by Molly Haskell
- Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah, by Ian Buruma
- Alfred Stieglitz: Taking Pictures, Making Painters, by Phyllis Rose
- Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power, by Neal Gabler
- Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream, by Francine Klagsbrun
- Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary’s Life, by Joshua Rubenstein
- Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio, by David Thomson
- Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence, by Joseph Berger
- Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy in the Age of Airplanes, by Anthony Gottlieb