Daniel J. Elazar
Daniel Judah Elazar (August 25, 1934 – December 2, 1999) was a political scientist known for his seminal studies of political culture of the US states. He was professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Temple University in Pennsylvania, and director of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University and the founder and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Biography. Elazar was born in Minneapolis in 1934. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where he studied under renowned federalism scholar Morton Grodzins. He maintained  residences in Philadelphia and Jerusalem. He was married to Harriet, with whom he had three children. Academic career. Elazar was a leading political scientist and specialist in the study of federalism, political culture, the Jewish political tradition, Israel and the world Jewish community. As founder and President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, he headed the major independent Jewish "think tank" concerned with analyzing and solving the key problems facing Israel and world Jewry. He was Professor of Political Science at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he founded and directed the Center for the Study of Federalism, a leading  federalism research institute. He held the Senator N.M. Paterson Professorship in Intergovernmental Relations at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, heading its Institute for Local Government. In 1986, President Reagan appointed him a citizen member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, the major intergovernmental agency dealing with federalism issues. He was appointed for a second term in 1988 and a third in 1991. He was the founding president of the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies, Secretary of the American Political Science Association, was Chairman of the Israel Political Science Association, and was a member of various consultative  bodies of the Israeli government. Elazar was the author or editor of more than 60 books and many other publications including a 4-volume study of the Covenant Tradition in Politics, as well as Community and Polity, The Jewish Polity, and People and Polity, a trilogy on Jewish political and community organization from earliest times to the present. He also founded and edited the scholarly journal Jewish Political Studies Review. His books in the area of federalism include "The American Partnership" (1962); "American Federalism: A View from the States" (1966); "The American Mosaic" (1994); and "Exploring Federalism" (1987). He was  also the author of a multi-generational study of the development of civil community in midwestern cities. The research produced "Cities of the Prairie" (1970), "Cities of the Prairie Revisited" (1986) and "Cities of the Prairie: Opening Cybernetic Frontiers" (2004). He was also the founder and editor of "Publius, the Journal of Federalism". Elazar was recognized as an expert on Jewish community organization worldwide, on the Jewish political tradition, and on Israel's government and politics. He was a consultant to the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization, the city of Jerusalem, and to most major Jewish  organizations in the United States and in Canada, Europe, South Africa and Australia. He took a leadership role in numerous local and national Jewish organizations. He was President of the American Sephardi Federation, and served on the International Council of Yad Vashem. Elazar was twice a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, a Fulbright Senior Lecturer, and received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Earhart and Ford Foundations, the Huntington Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation. He served as consultant to many federal , state and local agencies, including the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, the National Governors' Association, the Education Commission of the States, and the Pennsylvania Science and Technology Commission, as well as to the governments of Israel, Canada, Cyprus, Italy, South Africa, and Spain. Honors and awards. Elazar was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was awarded honorary degrees from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and Gratz College in Philadelphia, and received awards for distinguished scholarly contributions from the Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management of the  American Society for Public Administration, the Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations of the American Political Science Association, and the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry. The Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations Section of the American Political Science Association has created the Daniel Elazar Distinguished Federalism Scholar Award to recognize scholars who have made significant contributions to the field. Political theories. Elazar authored a four-volume comprehensive work on the idea of covenant called "The Covenant Tradition in Politics":. Elazar wrote extensively about the tradition of politics in Jewish scripture and thinking. His works on the subject include: "Kinship  and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses", "Authority, Power and Leadership in the Jewish Polity: Cases and Issues", and "Morality and Power: Contemporary Jewish Views". The Elazar typology of Jewish communal involvement is a typology laid out in "Community and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry". It categorizes the degree of involvement American Jews have in the Jewish community: Elazar's theories on the political subcultures in the American states, articulated in "American Federalism, A View From the States" have been influential and remains relevant among scholars of American politics. Elazar argues that there are three  dominant political subcultures in the American states: moralistic (government viewed as egalitarian institution charged with pursuing the common good), traditionalistic (government viewed a hierarchical institution charged with protecting an elite-centered status quo), and individualistic (government viewed as minimalist institution charged with protecting the functionality of the marketplace but is otherwise not active). Elazar's theory is still routinely used as variable in academic research and is discussed in most textbooks on American state and local government.