Philip Wexler
Philip Wexler (1943–2023) was a sociologist and professor who spent most of his career at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2002 he became Professor of Sociology of Education and held the Unterberg Chair in Jewish Social and Educational History. After retiring, he was a visiting professor at the University of Wuppertal in Germany. He earned a BA from New York University and an MA and PhD in sociology from Princeton. Earlier, he was the William Scandling Professor of Sociology and Education at the University of Rochester. He then moved to Jerusalem to study newly religious youth and Jewish mystical texts in Hebrew and Yiddish. While on leave from the Hebrew University, he served as Bronfman Professor at Brandeis University. He died on March 25, 2023. Wexler wrote many books on the sociology of religion and education and was the editor of the journal Sociology of Education for the American Sociological Association. In 2008–2009, with Jonathan Garb, he led a year-long working group at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Jerusalem on the Sociology and Anthropology of Jewish Mysticism in Comparative Perspective. The group produced the book After Spirituality: Studies in Comparative Mysticism.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:36 (CET).