SHAHAR, SHULAMIT

SHAHAR, SHULAMIT (1928– ), historian specializing in the Middle Ages. Shahar's work is considered groundbreaking. Her studies on women, children, and the aged – social groups that had not been studied before in the medieval period – became milestones in the study of social history. Shahar was born in Latvia and immigrated to Palestine in 1933. In 1965 she received her B.A. degree in history and English literature and in 1961 she received an M.A. degree in general and Jewish history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1965 she received her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne. In 1967 she began to work in the history department of Tel Aviv University and in 1990 she was made professor. In 1986–89 she was head of the department. In 1990–93 she was head of general studies at Tel Aviv University. She was also a visiting professor at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Shahar wrote many articles and books, including The Fourth Estate (1983), Childhood in the Middle Ages (1990), Growing Old in the Middle Ages (1997), and Women in a Medieval Heretical Sect (2000). In 2003 she was awarded the Israel Prize in history. (Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)