Shulamit Reinharz

[1] Rothschild's family were of German-Jewish heritage and as teenagers her parents became involved in the Socialist-Zionist youth movement known as Habonim to learn the agricultural skills which might be needed for life on a kibbutz.

[3] Hoping to pass through Holland and make aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, they were unable to leave the country because of the limits on immigration imposed by the British White Paper of 1939.

[5][6] Thirteen months after the war ended, Rothschild was born[4] and when she was one year old, her family migrated to the United States to join her paternal grandparents in Massachusetts.

[11] In 1982, she became an assistant professor of sociology at Brandeis;[16][17] earned a full professorship in 1991, the only woman to hold the rank at the university;[11][18] and became the women's studies program director 1992.

[12][22] The Institute was founded to focus on publishing research and organizing conferences and lectures regarding Jewish women's roles in various eras, but did not offer academic courses.

[25][26] Between 1997 and 2000, Reinharz, after being denied help from Brandeis administrators, raised over $2.4 million to renovate a derelict building and oversaw its design and construction to house the Women's Studies Research Center.

[27] The Center, which opened 19 November 2000 was created to house both the graduate program in Women's Studies and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute,[20] as well as research office space, and a reference library.

[30] She retired in 2017 from her post as the Jacob Potofsky Professor of Sociology and as director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute[26][24] and in honor of the occasion Nashim dedicated its 32nd, 33rd, and 34th issues to her.