Full Professor for General and Jewish History and the Culture of Modernity

Studies in History and Literature at the Universities Fribourg (MA) and Bern (PhD).

Diploma in pedagogic science at the University of Fribourg. Further Studies at the Academy of Music, Bern, and at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).

1987 to 1992 visiting researcher at various Institutes and Archives in New York, Washington D.C. and Boston, working on questions of Jewish and General History.

1985 to 2001 lecturer for Politics, History and Culture at the Bern University of Applied Sciences as well as head of the Wood Engineering Study Programme.

1996 to 2001 Member and research director of the former "Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland - Second World War".

Member of the foundation board an co-initiator of the 'Jewish History' foundation at the Archives of Contemporary History of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Member of the foundation board and co-inititator of the Paul-Grüninger-Foundation, St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Advisory activity on questions of international politics and culture.

Since 2001 head of the Institute of Jewish Studies and full professor at the University of Basel.

Select Bibliography

J. Picard, 'Homeland America: Der amerikanisch-jüdische Diasporabegriff zwischen säkularer Pluralisierung und mythischer Überhöhung', in: Eidherr, Armin; Langer, Gerhard; Müller, Armin (Hg.), Exil als Krisenerfahrung: Jüdische Bilanzen und Perspektiven (Wien u. Klagenfurt 2006), 67-82.

P.J. Hurwitz, J. Picard und A. Steinberg(Hg.), Jüdische Ethik und Sterbebegleitung (Basel 2006).

P.J. Hurwitz, J. Picard and A. Steinberg (eds), Jewish Ethics and the Care of End-of-Life Patients, A Collection of Rabbinical, Bioethical, Philosophical, and Juristic Opinions (Jersey City N.J. 2006).

Publikationen