Scienceמרים ירדני

Myriam Yardeni

Myriam Yardeni was an Israeli historian of France and a professor of general history at the University of Haifa.

1932 to 2015Research on French national identityStudies of Huguenots and JewsIsrael Prize in general history

Born: 25 April 1932, Timișoara
Died: 8 May 2015, Haifa
Occupation: historian, university teacher
Education: University of Paris, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

Myriam Yardeni was born in 1932 in Timișoara

Myriam Yardeni was born Marika Jakobovits in Timișoara, Romania, to a middle-class Jewish family. She immigrated to Israel in 1950. She learned Hebrew at an ulpan in Jerusalem and studied at a teachers' seminary founded by Martin Buber.

At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem she earned a BA in general history and French culture and an MA in history. Her 1961 master's thesis, supervised by Jacob Talmon, dealt with Bernard Lazare. In 1963 she completed a doctorate at the Sorbonne under Roland Mousnier.

She joined the faculty of the University of Haifa. In 1972 she became an associate professor there, the first woman to become a professor at that university, and in 1975 a full professor. She headed the general history department, founded an institute for French history, and in 2000 founded the university's school of history.

Her research covered national identity in early modern France and religious minorities, mainly Huguenots and Jews. She was a guest professor in Bordeaux and Paris. She retired in 2001, kept publishing, and died in 2015 in Haifa.