Gershon David Hundert

https://www.jta.org/2023/10/31/obituaries/gershon-hundert-renowned-...

https://www.mcgill.ca/jewishstudies/people-0/faculty-members/hundert

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershon_Hundert
Gershon David Hundert FRSC (1946 – October 27, 2023)[1] was a Canadian historian of Early Modern Polish Jewry and Leanor Segal Professor at McGill University.[2][3]

Biography
Born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Hundert was one of the three sons of Charles and Norma Hundert and a third generation immigrant from Eastern Europe.[4] His paternal grandparents arrived in Canada in the early 1910s from Obertyn (part of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth before the Second Partition in 1792, western Ukraine today) and maternal grandparents from Łódź.[5][6]

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.[7]

Following Ankori, Hundert returned to Columbia to pursue a doctorate degree in history. He primarily studied with Andrzej Kaminski [pl] (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.”[8] He was also deeply influenced and mentored by Israel historian Jacob Goldberg [de] (1924–2011), the pioneer scholar of Polish-Jewish relations.[9]

In 1975, Hundert came back to Canada and taught at McGill University ever since. He was appointed as lecturer (1975–1978), assistant professor (1978–1983), associate professor (1983–1992), Montreal Jewish Community Professor of Jewish Studies (1993–2002), and currently 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.[10][11] 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- ).[12]

Hundert was married to Ruth Mencow, daughter of World War II veteran Nathaniel Mencow.[13] They raised one son and two daughters.

It is with overwhelming sadness and grief that the family of Gershon David Hundert announces his peaceful passing on Friday, October 27, 2023, in his seventy-seventh year. Treasured son of Norma and the late Charles Hundert. Greatly beloved husband of Ruth Mencow. Loving and truly wonderful father and father-in-law of Rav Daniel Leibish and Dena Rivka, Rachel Leah Hundert and Luther Wong, Rena Pesl Hundert and Dean Peters. Adored and deeply loved Zaydie of Tziporah z"l, Akiva Shalom, Tamar, Nechamah Leah, Sara, and Ora Hundert; Charlie Anne Wong; and Judah Nathaniel Peters. Dear brother and brother-in-law of Ken Hundert, Mark and Lynda Hundert; and brother-in-law of Barbara and Paul Neustadt, William and Amy Mencow.