Abraham Polak

Abraham Polak was born in 1910 in Ochakiv

Polak was born in 1910 in Ochakiv, in the Russian Empire. In 1923 he came to the Land of Israel with his mother Miriam Mindel and his older brother Menashe. The family settled in Haifa, where he attended the Hebrew Reali School from 1924 to 1929.

In 1930 he moved to Jerusalem and studied at the Hebrew University. He earned an MA in the culture of Islam in 1934 and a PhD in 1936, with a thesis on land relations in Egypt, Syria and Palestine under Professor Leo Aryeh Mayer. As a student he wrote for the newspaper Davar.

He published research in Paris and London and received an award from the Royal Asiatic Society in 1939 for his study of feudalism in the Middle East. His 1943 book on Khazaria argued that the Khazars were a demographic base of Eastern European Jewry, and it won the Bialik Prize.

After 1948 he served in the IDF as a writer of educational publications until 1959. From 1955 he lectured at the institute that became the core of humanities at Tel Aviv University. From 1961 to 1966 he was professor of medieval history there and founded the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. He died in 1970.