Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai

Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai was born in 1886 in Lviv

Tur-Sinai was born Harry Torczyner in Lemberg, Galicia, in 1886. His father, Yitzhak Isaac Torczyner, was a merchant and Hebrew writer from Brody. As a child he moved to Vienna.

From 1905 to 1909 he studied philology at the University of Vienna and earned a doctorate. He also studied at the rabbinical seminary in Vienna and later studied Assyriology during a short stay in Berlin.

In 1910 he came to the Land of Israel, where he helped found and taught at the Rehavia and Herzliya Hebrew gymnasiums. From 1912 to 1919 he lectured on Semitic languages at the University of Vienna. From 1919 to 1933 he taught Bible and Semitic philology at the College for Jewish Studies in Berlin.

He immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1933 and taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1934 he became president of the Hebrew Language Committee and later headed the Academy of the Hebrew Language. He edited the final volumes of the Ben-Yehuda dictionary and translated the Bible into German.

His work on Biblical words drew criticism. He was married to Malka Silberstein and had 2 children, and late in life he married Fruma Alper. He died in 1973.