Scienceחיים יהודה רות

Leon Roth

Leon Roth was an English philosopher and historian of philosophy who taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as its rector from 1940 to 1943.

1896 to 1963Philosophy at the Hebrew UniversityStudies of Spinoza and MaimonidesHebrew translations of philosophical classics

Born: 31 March 1896, London
Died: 2 April 1963, Wellington
Occupation: translator, philosopher, historian, university teacher

Leon Roth was born in 1896 in London

Leon Roth was born in London on 31 March 1896 to a Jewish merchant family that kept tradition. His father hired a private tutor to teach his sons Jewish studies and Hebrew. His younger brother was the historian Cecil Roth.

He attended the City of London School and then studied classics at Exeter College, Oxford, together with post-biblical Hebrew. His studies were interrupted by service in the First World War. He graduated in 1920 and received his DPhil in 1922 for a thesis on the sources of Spinoza.

He lectured in philosophy at the University of Manchester from 1923 to 1928. In 1928 he moved to Jerusalem and became the first holder of the Ahad Ha-am chair of philosophy at the Hebrew University. He wrote on Descartes, Spinoza, Maimonides, Jewish thought, education and democracy, and founded a series of Hebrew translations of philosophical classics.

He supported a binational Jewish-Arab state. He retired early in 1953 and returned to London. He died in New Zealand in 1963 while on a lecture tour.