Egon Mayer (sociologist)
Egon Mayer (born December 23, 1944 in Caux , Switzerland ; † January 30, 2004 in Laurel Hollow , New York ) was a Hungarian-American sociologist and was considered one of the leading experts on the structures of American Jewry .
Life
Mayer was born in Switzerland. His parents came from Hungary and were part of a group of 1,647 Jews whom Adolf Eichmann had allowed to buy their freedom. In the last years of his life, Mayer researched the negotiator on the Jewish side, Rudolf Kasztner . After the war, the Mayers returned to Hungary, where Egon Mayer grew up in Budapest before the family emigrated to the USA during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 . In Brooklyn , Mayer attended an Orthodox yeshiva and later earned his PhD in sociology from Brooklyn College . He taught at Brooklyn College from 1970 until he fell ill in 2003 and carried out numerous studies for the American Jewish Committee in which he surveyed the religious behavior and the practice of traditional practices among American Jews. One focus was on interfaith marriages between Jews and non-Jews. Mayer himself advocated interreligious marriages of Jews and worked to integrate such couples into Jewish community life, and was founding director of the Jewish Outreach Institute .
Publications
- Love & tradition: marriage between Jews and Christians . Shock, 1987
- A demographic revolution in American Jewry . Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, The University of Michigan, 1992
- From Suburb to Shtetl: The Jews of Boro Park . Transaction Publishers, 1996
- American Jewish identity survey: AJIS Report: an exploration in the demography and outlook of a people . Center for Cultural Judaism, 2003
Awards
- 2004: Sklare Award from the Association of the Social Study of Jewry (ASSJ)
Individual evidence
- ^ Ministry of Social Welfare of the Czechoslovakian Government-in-Exile in London, Repatriation Department, 1939-1948 ; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- ^ Egon Mayer, 59, Sociologist Who Dealt With Jewish Issues , article in the New York Times online January 31, 2004; accessed: June 12, 2012
- ↑ LONG ISLAND INTERVIEW: EGON MAYER; Intermarriage: Public Issue, Private Fear , interwiev with Mayer in the online edition of the New York Times, May 21, 1989; accessed: June 12, 2012
- ^ Obituary / Egon Mayer: He loved humanity and the Jewish people . Haaretz, February 9, 2004
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mayer, Egon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American sociologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 23, 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Caux VD |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 30, 2004 |
| Place of death | Laurel Hollow , New York |