Daniel R. Schwartz

Daniel R. Schwartz was born in 1952 in Syracuse

Schwartz was born in 1952 in Syracuse, New York, and grew up there until 1961. His father, Abraham Schwartz, was a federal government lawyer, and his mother, Henrietta, worked as a homemaker and office clerk. In 1961 the family moved to Washington, where he attended public and Jewish schools.

From 1968 he took courses at the Baltimore Hebrew College, where Rabbi Joseph Baumgarten drew him to the study of the Second Temple period. He moved to Israel in 1971 and studied history and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his doctorate in 1980 under Menahem Stern and Moshe David Herr.

He then became a lecturer at the Hebrew University and was made full professor in 1995. He headed the Department of Jewish History from 1992 to 1994 and led the Scholion research center from 2011 to 2019. His research covers the books of Maccabees, the writings of Josephus and how German Jewish historians read the Second Temple period.

He retired in 2022 but continues to teach and research at the Hebrew University and the Schechter Institute. Since 2025 he has been president of the World Union of Jewish Studies. He married Lison Nordmann in 1975, and they have 7 children.