by the United Nations to direct a research project on Syria, Lebanon and Jordan for the Human Relations Area Files. Patai's work was wide-ranging but focused primarily on the cultural development of the ancient Hebrews and Israelites, on Jewish history and culture, and on the anthropology of the Middle East generally. He was the author of hundreds of scholarly articles and several dozen books, including three autobiographical volumes. In 1985 he was a contributor to an exhibit at the Museum of New Mexico. Awards In 1936, Patai was the co-recipient (jointly with Moshe Zvi Segal) of the Bialik Prize for Jewish thought. In 1976, Patai was awarded the National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish History category for The Myth of the Jewish Race Personal life Patai married Naomi Tolkowsky, whose family had moved to what was then Palestine in the early twentieth century; they had two daughters, Jennifer (born 1942) and Daphne (born 1943). He died in 1996 in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 85. Longtime Hebrew University of Jerusalem organic chemistry professor Saul Patai (1918-1998) was his brother. Selected bibliography Own writings (with Emanuel S. Goldsmith) (with Jennifer Patai) Reprint with an introduction by Merlin Stone Co-authorship Autobiography Secondary sources See also Copper Green List of Bialik Prize recipients References External links The Raphael Patai Papers at the New York Public Library Raphael Patai Prize Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology (Wayne State University Press) 1910 births 1996 deaths Jewish historians 20th-century Hungarian historians Hungarian anthropologists American Zionists Jewish orientalists Hungarian orientalists Hungarian Zionists American orientalists Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Fairleigh Dickinson University faculty Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni University of Breslau alumni Eötvös Loránd University alumni Hungarian Jews Hungarian emigrants to Israel Jews in Mandatory Palestine Israeli emigrants to the United States American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Writers from Budapest 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Jewish scholars of Islam 20th-century American anthropologists American male non-fiction writers Palestine ethnographers