Stephen J. Whitfield (born 1942[1]) is the Max Richter Professor Emeritus of American Civilization at Brandeis University, where he has taught since receiving his doctorate there in 1972 until 2016.
His main interests include 20-century American political and cultural history and American Jewish history.
[3] Since 1976 Whitfield was associated with the Southern Jewish Historical Society and he published a series of essays on the history of the Jews of Southern United States.
[2] Whitfield is the son of Jewish immigrants, a German-born father and Romanian-born mother, who escaped the Europe in 1938, before the Holocaust.
The family belonged to the Reform synagogue.