is Professor of Jewish History and Culture at the University of Munich. After studies in Heidelberg and Jerusalem he received his PhD from Columbia University, and taught at Indiana and Brandeis Universities, and as a visiting professor at the Universities of Mainz, Budapest, and Stanford. Among his book publications are Zionism: A Concise History (Princeton 2003, German original 2002, Italian 2003, Korean 2004), The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (Yale 1996, German 2000, Hebrew 2003), and After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany (Princeton 1997, originally in German 1995). He is co-author and assistant editor of the four-volume German-Jewish History in Modern Times (Columbia UP, 1996-1998; also in German and Hebrew editions) and other works on modern Jewish history.