Professor Benny Kraut, who guided the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College, has died.
Kraut died Friday after collapsing Sept. 19 while playing baseball.
He served as the director of the center and the Queens College Jewish studies program for a decade, and was a history professor. Kraut came to the New York City school from the University of Cincinnati, where he had spent more than two decades as a professor and the director of Judaic studies.
Kraut published widely in the fields of modern and American Jewish history and Judaism — three books, more than three dozen scholarly essays and book chapters, and nearly 150 book reviews. He formerly was the book review editor of American Jewish History.
In 1985, Kraut co-edited “Jews and the Founding of the Republic” with Samuel Joseph and Jonathan D. Sarna.
At his death, Kraut was completing a book on the Orthodox collegiate organization Yavneh.
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