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Hava Lazarus-Yafeh

Hava Lazarus-Yafeh was a German-born Israeli scholar of Islam who taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and won the Israel Prize in history in 1993.

1930 to 1998Research on al-GhazaliIslamic studies and interfaith relationsMedieval Muslim criticism of the BibleIsrael Prize in history, 1993

Born: 6 May 1930, Wiesbaden
Died: 6 September 1998, Jerusalem
Occupation: historian, orientalist, Islamicist, university teacher
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hebrew Reali School

Hava Lazarus-Yafeh was born in 1930 in Wiesbaden

Hava Lazarus was born on May 6, 1930, in Wiesbaden, Germany, to a Jewish family. Her father was Rabbi Paul Lazarus and her mother, Jadwiga Walfisz, was a teacher. The family moved to Mandatory Palestine in February 1939, and she attended the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa.

She finished the Haifa Teachers' College, later Gordon College, in 1950. At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem she earned a BA in 1953 and an MA in 1958. Her doctorate, on the literary character of the writings of al-Ghazali, was supervised by David Hartwig Baneth.

She began teaching at the Hebrew University in 1962 and was a visiting researcher at Harvard University from 1965 to 1966. She headed the Department for Islamic Civilization from 1968 to 1971. Her research dealt with Islamic history and with the links between Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

Her book on medieval Muslim criticism of the Bible appeared from Princeton University Press in 1992 and in Hebrew in 1998. She was married to the educator Immanuel Yafeh. She died in Jerusalem on September 6, 1998.