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

Judaism, Spring, 1996 by Menahem Milson

Goitein had many interests, as his list of publications clearly shows. Probably more than any other teacher, he inspired an interest in Islamic history in the students of the 1930s and 1940s. However, there is no one in the second generation of the School of Oriental Studies who could be described as his direct successor. Not one of them regards himself as his pupil in the way that Blau was Baneth's pupil or Blanc and Piamenta were Polotsky's. This may be due to Goitein's amazing multiplicity of interests, or to his preoccupation with his duties as Chief Education Inspector between 1938 and 1948. His lasting impact in the field of scholarship came in the 1950s when he decided to devote himself exclusively to the study of the Geniza and the social and intellectual history of Jewish communities in the Mediterranean Basin in the Middle Ages, producing the monumental six-volume work, A Mediterranean Society.(31) In 1957 Goitein left Israel to continue his work in the United States, initially in Philadelphia and later at Princeton, where he died in 1985.

Pesah Shin'ar (then Schusser) began his studies at the School of Oriental Studies in 1937 and was soon closely associated with David Ayalon, who recognized his talents and invited him to join the work on Brill's Modern Arabic Word List, which was published in 1940. In 1947, after years of research, they produced their Arabic Hebrew dictionary, which has since become the primary tool of Israeli students of Arabic at all levels.

M.J. Kister came to the Hebrew University in 1939. Although he had no previous knowledge of Arabic, he was quickly recognized as possessing most unusual talents. He joined the teaching staff relatively late, in 1959, but his influence on the university began many years before his arrival there as a lecturer. In 1946 Kister began to teach Arabic in Biram's Reali School in Haifa and inspired many of his students to continue Arabic and Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental Studies. Kister's influence and charisma were outstanding: Of 19 third-generation Arabists currently teaching at the Hebrew University, six were Kister's pupils at the Reali (Lazarus-Yaffe, Yinnon, Shaked, Milson, Friedmann, Sivan). Others found positions in Tel Aviv or Haifa (Winter, Schwarz, Kushnir, Ella Almagor). This is a phenomenon unparalleled in any other area of academic study. Once in Jerusalem Kister developed his special approach to the study of early Islamic tradition; his influence is particularly apparent in the work of fourth-generation scholars E. Kohlberg, E. Landau, and M. Lecker.(*)

The third generation is that of scholars who began studying at the Hebrew University in the 1950s and joined the faculty in the 1960s - a period of considerable growth and expansion. New subjects and specializations were then introduced and the School of Oriental Studies changed its name to "The Institute of Asian and African Studies" as its scope was extended beyond Arabic and Islamic Studies. The 1960s also saw the establishment of departments of Arabic and Middle East History in the new universities: Haifa, Tel-Aviv, and Bar Ilan whose faculty were also members of the third generation of the School of Oriental Studies.