KATZ, ISRAEL

KATZ, ISRAEL (1917–2003), U.S. aeronautical engineer. Katz was born in New York and graduated from the Boston Trade School. He earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University, Boston (1941); a naval architecture and marine engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a degree sponsored by the U.S. Navy (1942); and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University (1944). He was a staff member of Cornell (1944–57) where he became associate professor and was head of the aircraft power unit. He worked in the advanced electronic center of the General Electric Company in Ithaca, N.Y. (1957–63) but returned to Northeastern University (1967–88), where he became professor of mechanical engineering and held senior academic appointments, including dean of the Center for Continuing Education, before retiring as emeritus professor. Katz worked on submarine and aircraft propulsion and submarine launched missile systems. He was a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Company. He was an outstanding teacher of basic and advanced teaching courses in engineering, and his books on aircraft propulsion and mechanical engineering in industry became standard texts. He received the New England Award in engineering (1993). He was an active supporter of Temple Beth El and Temple Ohabei Shalom in Boston. (Michael Denman (2nd ed.) KATZ, ISRAEL KATZ, ISRAEL (1927– ), Israeli social scientist and politician. Katz was born in Vienna and came to Ereẓ Israel under the youth aliyah scheme in 1937. He studied physics and chemistry at The Hebrew University and, after completing his military service, studied social work at Columbia University, New York. Returning to Israel in 1953, he was appointed director of a home for emotionally disturbed children and from 1955 to 1959 was educational supervisor of Youth Aliyah. He returned to the United States to continue his studies and received his doctorate in social work administration from the Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. On his return to Israel he was appointed director of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work of The Hebrew University, also serving as director-general of the National Insurance Institute and director of the Brookdale Gerontological Institute. In 1982 he received a Ph.D. from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and subsequently became a senior lecturer in the department of sociology and anthropology. He joined the Democratic Movement for Change in 1977 and, when his party joined the coalition in October 1977, was appointed minister of labor and social betterment, serving until August 1981. KATZ, ISRAEL KATZ, ISRAEL (Joseph; 1930– ), U.S. ethnomusicologist. Katz graduated from UCLA (B.A., 1956) and later spent two years (1959–61) in Jerusalem, where he studied privately with edith gerson-kiwi and undertook field research among the Sephardic communities of Israel. He returned to UCLA and took his doctorate in 1967 with a dissertation on Judeo-Spanish ballads, comparing the stylistic features of traditional ballads from Jerusalem with those preserved among the Sephardim of Turkey, Greece, and Morocco. Among other places, he taught at McGill University (Montreal, 1968–74); Columbia University (1974–75); York College (CUNY), chairing the Department of Fine and Performing Arts; and Hebrew Union College as a visiting lecturer. He conducted research in Spain on a Guggenheim Fellowship (1975–76) and again as a Fulbright scholar (1985–86). In 1982, he became associated with the University of California, Santa Cruz (1982–89) and Davis (1989–2004), collaborating as an associate researcher with the renowned hispanists Samuel G. Armistead and Joseph H. Silverman (d. 1989. on the series Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews. Katz served as editor of Ethnomusicology (1970–72); for the Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, he was editor (1977–70), coeditor (with Albert Weisser, 1976–82), editor (1983–88), and coeditor with Arbie Orenstein (2001– ). He was a founding member of the American Society for Jewish Music (1974) and served as chairman of the board (until 1988). Katz concentrated his studies on the Sephardic and Oriental Jewish communities of the Mediterranean region, and on the traditional folk music of Spain, with special studies on the 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria. He collected traditional ballads in Morocco (summer 1961), Spain (summer 1978) and Portugal (summer 1988), where he followed the footsteps of kurt schindler . Transcription and analytical techniques as well as comparative tune scholarship are basic to his researches. He wrote the books Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem: An Ethnomusicological Study (1972–1975) and, with S.G. Armistead and J.H. Silverman, the six-volume Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Oral Tradition (1986–2005). He was also editor of many important studies and wrote numerous articles. (Amnon Shiloah (2nd ed.) KATZ, JACOB KATZ, JACOB (1904–1998), Israeli historian. Born in Magyargencs, Hungary, Katz studied at various yeshivot and at the university of Frankfurt. From 1936 to 1950 he taught at religious schools and the Mizrachi Teachers' Seminary in Jerusalem. From 1950 he taught at the Hebrew University, becoming professor of Jewish social and educational history in 1962. In 1969 he was appointed rector of the Hebrew University. Katz's published works include Toledot Yisrael ve-he-Ammim ("Israel and the Nations," several editions, 1941–62); Maso-ret u-Mashber   (1958; Tradition and Crisis, 1961); Exclusiveness and Tolerance (1961); Freemasons and Jews (1970); Emancipation and Assimilation: Studies in Modern Jewish History (1972); Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770–1870 (1973); Toward Modernity: The European Jewish Models (1987). His work is significant for the understanding of the intricate relationships between Jews and gentiles and offers insights into Jewish sociology in medieval and modern times. For his studies he utilized rabbinical sources which had been usually unexplored for historical-sociological research. In 1980 he was awarded the Israel Prize for studies in Jewish history. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.M. Harris, The Pride of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and His Work (2002).