Chaim Menachem Rabin

Chaim Menachem Rabin (Hebrew: חיים מנחם רבין‎; 1915–1996) was an Israeli professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages.

Chaim Rabin was born in Giessen, Germany, 22 November 1915, the son of Israel and Martel Rabin. He studied first at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1933-1934.^[1] He then studied in England, at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London where he received his BA degree in 1937. In 1939 he completed his Ph.D thesis, on "Studies in Early Arabic Dialects". From 1938 he was also a lecturer at the SOAS.

In 1941^[2] he moved to the University of Oxford, where he received his MA, then D.Phil in 1942. In 1943 he was appointed Cowley Lecturer in Post-Biblical Hebrew there.

From 1956 he was Associate Professor, then full Professor of Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his retirement in 1985.

After his early interest in Arabic dialects, Chaim Rabin's field was all aspects of Hebraic linguistics, in particular, translations of the ancient language of the Bible, the Dead Sea Manuscripts, and the detailed study of ancient medieval codices. He succeeded Moshe Goshen-Gottstein as chief editor of the Hebrew University Bible Project.^[3]

Rabin was a pioneer in training Israeli translators. Together with Shoshana Bloom, he established the Hebrew University's Department of Scientific Translation.

Rabin was a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language.

Published Work

• Arabic Reader. London: Lund Humphries 1947.
• Hebrew Reader. London: Lund Humphries 1949.
• Ancient West-Arabian. London: Taylor's Foreign Press 1951.
• Maimonides, The guide of the perplexed, with introduction and commentary by Julius Guttmann. translated from the Arabic by Chaim Rabin. London: East and West Library 1952.
• The Zadokite Documents. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1954
• "Alexander Jannaens and the Pharisees". in: Journal of Jewish Studies 7 (1956), pp. 3–11.
• Qumran Studies. Oxford 1957
• "The Linguistics of Translation". in: A. D. Booth (ed.), Aspects of Translation (Studies in Communications 2), London: Secker and Warburg 1958, pp. 123ff
• Studies in the Bible : edited on behalf of the Institute of Jewish Studies in the Faculty of Humanities. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University 1961
• "Etymological Miscellanea", in: Scripta Hierosolymitana 8 (1961), pp. 384–400.
• Yigael Yadin (edited with commentary), The scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, translated by Batya and Chaim Rabin. London: Oxford University Press 1962.
• (with Yigael Yadin), Aspects of the Dead Sea scrolls. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University 1965
• The influence of different systems of Hebrew orthography on reading Efficiency. Jerusalem: The Israel Institute of Applied Social Research 1968.
• The development of the syntax of post-biblical Hebrew. Leiden; Boston: Brill 2000. ISBN 90-04-11433-5.^[4]
• A Short History of the Hebrew Language ^[5]

References

• Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, Shlomo Morag, Simcha Kogut (eds.), Studies on Hebrew and other Semitic languages presented to Chaim Rabin. Jerusalem: Akademon Press 1990.

External links

• University CV - Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Short Obituary
• A Short History of the Hebrew Language by Chaim Rabin
• Chaim Rabin: A Friend and Mentor