Gershon Hundert

Gershon David Hundert (1946 – October 27, 2023) was a Canadian historian of Early Modern Polish Jewry and Leanor Segal Professor at McGill University.

Biography

Hundert received his B.A. from Jewish Theological Seminary and School of General Studies at Columbia University (1968) and M.A. from Ohio State University (1971), where he wrote a thesis on 18th-Century Hasidic Rabbi Abraham Kalisker under the supervision of Zvi Ankori (1920–2012), a specialist of Byzantine Karaites and a student of Salo Baron.

Following Ankori, Hundert returned to Columbia to pursue a doctorate degree in history. He primarily studied with Andrzej Kaminski (born 1935), political and diplomatic historian of early modern Poland–Lithuania, and completed his dissertation in 1978 titled “Security and Dependence: Perspectives on Seventeenth-century Polish-Jewish Society Gained Through a Study of Jewish Merchants in Little Poland.” He was also deeply influenced and mentored by Israel historian Jacob Goldberg (1924–2011), the pioneer scholar of Polish-Jewish relations.

In 1975, Hundert came back to Canada and taught at McGill University ever since. He was appointed lecturer (1975–1978), assistant professor (1978–1983), associate professor (1983–1992), Montreal Jewish Community Professor of Jewish Studies (1993–2002), and Leanor Segal Professor of Jewish Studies (since 2002). He has served as Department Chair of Jewish Studies twice (1984–1988 and 1998–2007). He also held visiting professorships at Harvard, Yale and the Hebrew University. He was the editor-in-chief of The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2008) and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2011- ).

Hundert was married to Ruth Mencow, daughter of World War II veteran Nathaniel Mencow.