We mourn the untimely death, on Nov 20th, of our beloved friend, teacher and colleague, Dr. Sharon Gillerman, scholar of modern European Jewish history and Professor of Rabbinical students at the Skirball Campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC) and undergraduates at the University of Southern California (USC).
Sharon brought to every conversation her raw erudition and intelligence, as well as her suppleness of mind – a capacity to hear other perspectives and, just as importantly, a willingness to do so. She was motivated in the balance of these abilities by a profound, intellectually pure and edifying curiosity.
Bringing these talents and commitments to the longstanding institutional and instructional relationship between HUC and USC, where she began teaching in 1999, Sharon also initiated and participated in the various research initiatives that bind us collegially. As an instructor, she offered our Jewish Studies courses on the Holocaust, in which she went to great lengths, often against the tide of student culture and expectations, to convey the impossibly ramified and morally challenging dimensions of the Holocaust, always with her unflinching intellectual honesty. In this, as well as through her scholarship, Sharon helped shape a new generation’s understanding of that momentous chapter in human history.
Her research focused on German Jewish social history and the history of family and gender. Her first book was Germans into Jews: Remaking the Jewish Social Body in the Weimar Republic, and her current book project was on Siegmund “Zishe” Breitbart, a Jewish performer known as the strongest man in the world in the 1920s. And though she did not widely reveal it, Sharon was also a wonderful Hebraist. She read Hebrew text with uncommon expertise and precision, and she brought her rich intellect and evident passion to the issues of Israel and Zionism, always teaching and welcoming the opportunity to learn, at one and the same time.
Most of all, we will remember Sharon for her thoughtfulness, empathy and perfectly timed (often understated) wry humor. She approached every topic of business or study with an eye to the well-being of other people, and she pursued the education of our students without ever losing sight of the professor’s task, namely, to promote their intellectual, personal and cultural growth.
Sharon is survived by her husband, Mark Quigley, associate professor of English at the University of Oregon, her daughter Maya Gillerman, her mother Roberta Gillerman, her brother David Gillerman and her nieces, Shayna, Alyssa, and Ana. We who had the privilege of working with Sharon, extend our most heartfelt condolences to them, and we join our colleagues around the world in grieving the loss of deeply admired scholar.
