In Memoriam: Leila Leah Amsel Bronner, 1930-2019

Lelia Bronner, a noted biblical scholar, who taught at universities in South Africa and the United States, died in Los Angeles earlier this month and was buried in Jerusalem. She was 89 years old.

A native of Czechoslovakia, her father a rabbi, recognized that Europe was becoming unsafe for Jews and in 1936 he immigrated with his family to the United States and settled in Brooklyn. Bronner attended Hunter College of the City University of New York and then later moved to South Africa with her husband, who was a rabbi.

While in South Africa, Dr. Bronner earned a bachelor’s degree in Bible studies at Witwatersrand University in 1955 and a master’s degree in Jewish history in 1960. She earned a doctorate in northwest Semitic languages at the University of Pretoria in 1964.

Dr. Bronner and her family moved to Los Angeles in 1984. There she taught at what is now American Jewish University and the University of Southern California.

Dr. Bronner authored several books including her memoirs The Eternal Students: The Life & Learning of Dr. Leila Leah Bronner & Rabbi Joseph Bronner (2018).