Literatureעזרא פליישר

Ezra Fleischer

Ezra Fleischer was an Israeli philologist and poet known for his research on Hebrew piyyut and Jewish prayer.

1928 to 2006Research on Hebrew piyyutThe prison poem Massa GogCairo Genizah poetry research

Born: 7 August 1928, Timișoara
Died: 25 July 2006, Jerusalem
Occupation: historian, poet, translator, scholar of Piyyut
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ezra Fleischer was born in 1928 in Timișoara

Fleischer was born in 1928 in Timișoara, Romania. His father, Judah Loeb Fleischer, founded the Jewish school in the city, where Ezra studied.

After World War II he was active in the Bnei Akiva movement and was jailed for Zionist activity. In prison he wrote the poem Massa Gog, which foresaw the fall of communism. It was smuggled to Israel and published under the pen name Y. Gola.

In 1960 he moved to Israel and turned to the study of piyyut. He studied under Haim Schirmann and earned a doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1969, with work on the poet Joseph ibn Abitur.

He taught at the Hebrew University from 1962 and became a full professor in 1975. In 1967 he founded the Genizah research project on Hebrew poetry at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, which he later headed. He published scholarly editions of medieval poets and studies on Jewish prayer.

He was elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1984. He died in Jerusalem in 2006 and was survived by a son and a daughter.