Historian Michael Lenarz studied at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt from 1976 to 1981. After working as a research assistant at the Technical University of Braunschweig, where he focused on medieval French history, he joined the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt in 1985. There, he initially worked as a freelancer and research assistant before serving as deputy director from 2012 to 2022. He is now a freelance scholar with a focus on the legacy of German Jewry, which was destroyed in the Shoah.

As a curator and scholar, he conceived and produced numerous publications and exhibitions at the Jewish Museum, including those on the history and documentation of the older Jewish cemeteries in Offenbach and Frankfurt.