Moshe Spitzer

Moshe Spitzer was born in 1900 in Boskovice

Moshe Spitzer was born on 8 July 1900 in Boskovice, Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a traditional Jewish family. As a young man he was active in Zionist movements and helped set up a local branch of the Blue and White youth movement.

He studied Indology, the study of Sanskrit and ancient Indian culture, at universities in Berlin, Frankfurt, Kiel and Vienna. In 1926 he earned a doctorate from the University of Kiel. From 1927 to 1928 he worked at the Prussian Academy of Sciences, where he studied an ancient Sanskrit manuscript now named after him.

In 1930 he edited the children's section of the Jüdische Rundschau. From 1932 to 1934 he was a research assistant to Martin Buber, and from 1934 to 1938 he directed Schocken Books in Germany. In that role he proposed to S. Y. Agnon the anthology Yamim Nora'im, published in 1937.

In 1939 he immigrated to the Land of Israel, settled in Jerusalem's Rehavia neighborhood and founded Tarshish, which published world classics in Hebrew with careful design. In the 1940s he helped develop the Hebrew fonts Bezalel, Romma, David and Hatzvi, and he also researched Hebrew letter design.

He was married to Pepa Hammerman and had 3 children. He died in Kfar Saba on 16 November 1982.