Scienceיואל ויינברג

Joel Veinberg

Joel Veinberg was a Latvian-born historian and biblical scholar who studied ancient Jewish history and the Ancient Orient.

1922 to 2011Research on the Persian periodAncient Jewish history in the USSRHolocaust survivor of Riga Ghetto

Born: 1 September 1922, Riga
Died: 20 May 2011, Jerusalem
Occupation: biblical scholar, historian
Education: University of Latvia

Joel Veinberg was born in 1922 in Riga

Joel Veinberg was born in 1922 in Riga to a Jewish family. His father was a merchant. He attended a German-language private school and later a Hebrew-language Jewish school, then began studying history at the University of Latvia.

In 1941 his family was confined to the Riga Ghetto, where his mother died. In 1944 he was moved with his father and brother to the Stutthof concentration camp. His father died, and the brothers returned to Riga in 1945.

He finished university in 1946 and began teaching there while working on a doctorate. In 1949 he was forced to leave during the campaign against cosmopolitanism. He completed his doctorate in 1954 and joined the teachers' university in Daugavpils in 1962, later becoming a professor and head of department.

He wrote on the Ancient Orient, the Second Temple period, the Persian period and the Bible. In 1991 he became the first rector of a Jewish university in Riga. In 1993 he immigrated to Israel, taught at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and died in Jerusalem in 2011.