Jehoash Hirshberg

Jehoash Hirshberg was born in 1938 in Tel Aviv

Hirshberg was born in Tel Aviv in 1938. His father, Yitzhak Hirshberg, was a teacher, translator and amateur musician, and his mother, Nechama, also taught. He studied violin with Ben-Ami Zilber and later with Alice and Lorand Fenyves, and viola with Oedoen Partos.

From 1955 he studied at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music and earned a master's degree in violin, viola and conducting. In 1966 he began graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania as a Fulbright student, focusing on 14th century French music.

After the academy he joined the army, first as a reporter and then in charge of classical music programs at Galei Tzahal. He also taught music at the Renanim school in Tel Aviv, which his father founded. He married Israela Zolondz in 1964, and they had 4 sons.

In 1971 he returned to Israel and joined the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he headed the musicology department from 1984 to 1990. He became full professor in 1995 and emeritus in 2006. He also played baroque violin and viola, and led research on the Italian solo concerto and on Italian opera of the 1860s.

He received the Israel Prize for music and musicology in 2023. He died in 2025.