The beginnings of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Judaism, Spring, 1996 by Menahem Milson

Over the course of the next few years other scholars joined the faculty. These included M.J. Kister, E. Ashtor, P. Shin'ar, J. Blau, G. Baer, M. Piamenta, and H. Blanc.(*) With the exception of Piamenta and Ayalon, all these scholars were born and educated in Europe.(30) All of them, without exception, obtained their Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under the supervision of one or another member of the founding generation, and all began teaching in the 1950s. While clearly showing the influence of their teachers they expanded the field of Arabic and Islamic studies at the Hebrew University, and in some cases developed new disciplines or sub-disciplines, such as, for example, the study of Judeo-Arabic, or the study of the transition from the pre-Islamic era to Islam, the study of Ottoman diplomacy, and Mamluk military history.

The teacher-student relations between the first generation and the second are worth examining. Heyd, who became internationally known for his studies on Turkey, and who established a school of Israeli Ottomanists, first studied Turkish under Weil. Between October 1951 and his untimely death in 1968 Uriel Heyd nurtured Ottoman studies at the Hebrew University. Among his pupils were Aryeh Shmuelevitz, Amnon Cohen, Moshe Maoz, Shimon Shamir, David Kushnir, and others, who belong to the third generation of Israel's Orientalists.

Professor Mayer's special interest in the Mamluk era is reflected in different ways in the work of Ayalon and Ashtor. It was Mayer who first directed Ayalon's interest toward the Mamluk era. However, while Mayer's principal interest was the art history of the Mamluk period, Ayalon became concerned with the social structure of the Mamluk state. His students include Moshe Sharon (of the third generation), and Amikam Elad and Reuven Amitai-Preis (who belong to the fourth generation of Israel's Orientalists). As Ashtor's personal interest was in the history of Jewish communities, he chose to focus on the history of the Jews in Syria and Egypt under the Mamluks, and he later wrote a history of Jews in Muslim Spain.

Baneth's influence is ubiquitous, and is to be seen not only in the work of all members of the second generation, but also in the work of many of the third generation who began their university studies in the 1950s: Shaked, Milson, Levine, Lazarus-Yaffe, Moreh, and Friedmann. Of the second generation teachers the one most influenced by Baneth was Blau, who perpetuated and further developed Baneth's special interest in Judeo-Arabic literature. Blau was also influenced by Polotsky, who was the leading figure in linguistics in Jerusalem and was the mentor of both Haim Blanc and Moshe Piamenta. Polotsky, the youngest of the first generation, continued to teach through the 1950s and 1960s that is to say his influence extends beyond the second and third generations of Hebrew University linguists. Professors Olga Kapeliuk, Gidon Goldenberg, and Arye Levine of the Hebrew University and Professor Shlomo Raz of Tel Aviv University are among the third generation scholars taught by him.