Mordechai Breuer

Mordechai Breuer was born in 1921 in Karlsruhe

Breuer was born in 1921 in Karlsruhe, Germany, to Samson and Leah Breuer. His father was a rabbi and mathematician, and he was a great-grandson of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. His mother died when he was young, and his father later married Agatha Jeidel.

At age 12 he moved with his family to the Land of Israel. He studied at Horev high school in Jerusalem and then at the Kol Torah and Hebron yeshivas.

In 1947 he taught at the Bnei Akiva yeshiva in Kfar HaRoeh and was sent to the detention camps in Cyprus. From 1949 to 1965 he taught at Yeshivat HaDarom in Rehovot, and from 1967 to 1982 at Michlalah Jerusalem College. From 1969 he also taught Tanakh at Yeshivat Har Etzion.

Breuer held that there was one correct text of the Tanakh. He built a text from several manuscripts and found it matched the Aleppo Codex almost fully. A 2001 edition based on his work became known as Keter Yerushalayim, and he also developed the aspect approach to the Torah.

He received the Bialik Prize in 1984 and the Israel Prize in 1999, and an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University. He lived in Bayit Vegan in Jerusalem and died in 2007.