Background
January Mühlstein grew up in a German-speaking Jewish family, which traditionally practised Liberal Judaism.
January Mühlstein grew up in a German-speaking Jewish family, which traditionally practised Liberal Judaism.
From 1970 onwards, he studied physics at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and completed a Doctor of Philosophy in theoretical quantum optics in 1977.
In 1967, he began studying physics at the Karl University in Prague. After the defeat of the reformation movement known as the Prague Spring, in which Mühlstein participated actively, he emigrated to West Germany in 1969. During the next four years, he worked in the leadership of project energy research of the nuclear energy research facility in Jülich.
Since 1982 Mühlstein has been working as a business journalist in Munich and is deputy chief editor of a journal covering the economics of the energy market.
He was again elected as chair of Beth Shalom in May 2011. From 1999 until 2011, he was the chair of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany.
Mühlstein is married to Doctor Verena Mühlstein (*1953), author of a biography about Albert Schweitzer"s wife, Helene Breslau, who is also active at Beth Shalom.
Between 1977 and 1978 Mühlstein was a board member of the West German section of Amnesty International.