Joshua Prawer

Joshua Prawer was born in 1917 in Będzin

Prawer was born in 1917 in Będzin, Poland, to a Jewish merchant family. He grew up speaking Polish and German and later joined a Zionist group. His mother died at the start of World War II, and most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust.

He moved to Palestine in 1936 and began studying mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He soon switched to history, and his teacher Richard Koebner guided him toward the study of the Crusader states. He earned his doctorate in 1947 with a thesis on Crusader settlement in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

In 1947 he joined the Hebrew University faculty, and he fought in the 1948 siege of Jerusalem. He became professor of medieval history in 1958, later served as dean of humanities, and became prorector in 1975. His research described Crusader society as a colonial society.

He helped found the University of Haifa and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In 1963 he began chairing an expert committee that proposed a broad reform of Israeli schooling, which started in 1968. He was also chief editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica.

He received the Israel Prize in 1969 and was named Yakir Yerushalayim in 1989. He died in 1990 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.