Joel Carmichael
# Joel Carmichael

Joel Carmichael (December 31, 1915 – January 27, 2006) was an American historian, magazine editor, and translator.

## Biography

### Early life and education

Born Joel Lipsky on December 31, 1915, in New York City, Carmichael was the youngest son of Charlotte Schacht and Louis Lipsky, a founder of the American Zionist movement, President of the Zionist Organization of America. His oldest brother, David (1907–1996) became a publicist; his middle brother, Eleazar (1911–1993), was a lawyer, novelist, journalist, playwright and active Zionist.

Following graduation from high school, he was sent for a year to Palestine. There he began learning Arabic before returning to New York and attending Columbia University. In England, a chance meeting with an Oxford don turned him to read Greek and Russian at Oxford.

### Career

His first book, a translation of a memoir of the Russian Revolution, helped Carmichael land a contract with Oxford University Press. From there, he wrote numerous titles on early Christianity, Arab history and Russian history, and translated Anna Karenina for a new paperback edition. One book, The Death of Jesus, was translated into eight languages. Carmichael was also editor of Midstream, a Zionist magazine, for 24 years, serving from 1975–1988 and 1990-2001.

### Marriage and family

Carmichael was married twice: first to the journalist Mary Carr Thomas, then to sculptor Elizabeth de Cuevas in 1960. He had three children.

His granddaughter is the filmmaker Emily Carmichael.

### Death

Carmichael died January 27, 2006, in Manhattan.

## Published works

* An Illustrated History of Russia (Reynal, 1960)
* The Eichmann Case: Reactions in West Germany (Marstin Press, 1961)
* Chaim Weizmann: A Biography by Several Hands with Meyer Wolfe Weisgal and David Ben-Gurion (1962)
* The Death of Jesus (Macmillan, 1963)
* A Short History of the Russian Revolution (Nelson, 1964)
* The Shaping of the Arabs: A Study in Ethnic Identity (Macmillan, 1967)
* Karl Marx: The Passionate Logician (Scribner, 1967)
* Open Letter to Moses and Mohammed (J.H. Heineman, 1968)
* A Cultural History of Russia (Weybright and Talley, 1968)
* Trotsky: an Appreciation of His Life (St. Martin's Press, 1975)
* Stalin's Masterpiece (St. Martin's Press, 1976)
* Arabs Today (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1977)
* The Birth of Christianity: Reality and Myth (Hippocrene Books, 1989)
* A History of Russia (Hippocrene Books, 1990)
* The Satanizing of the Jews: Origin and Development of Mystical Anti-Semitism (Fromm International Pub. Corp., 1992)
* The Unriddling of Christian Origins: A Secular Account (Prometheus Books, 1995)

### Translations

* Carl Brockelmann, History of the Islamic Peoples (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1939)
* N. N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution: A Personal Record (Oxford, 1955)
* Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Bantam, 1960)
* Dan Theodore, The Origins of Bolshevism (Secker & Warburg, 1964)
* Gisela Elsner, The Giant Dwarfs (Grove Press, 1965)
* Paul Marc Henry, Africa Aeterna: The Pictorial Chronicle of a Continent (Sedo S.A., 1965)
* Jean Lacouture, Vietnam: Between Two Truces, trans. w. Kellen Konrad (Vintage Books/Random House, 1966)
* Willy Brandt, A Peace Policy for Europe (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968)
