Public lifeנחמה ליבוביץ

Nechama Leibowitz

Nechama Leibowitz was an Israeli Bible scholar and teacher known for her weekly Torah study sheets, and she received the Israel Prize in education in 1956.

1905 to 1997Weekly Torah study sheetsStudies on the 5 Torah booksBible teaching and teacher training

Born: 3 September 1905, Riga
Died: 12 April 1997, Jerusalem
Occupation: pedagogue, university teacher, biblical scholar, scholar
Education: Tel Aviv University, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Marburg

Nechama Leibowitz was born in 1905 in Riga

Nechama Leibowitz was born in Riga in 1905 to a religious Zionist family. Her father was a timber merchant who spoke Hebrew with his children, and her elder brother was the philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz. In 1919 the family moved to Berlin.

She finished high school in Berlin in 1925 and studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Marburg and Berlin. While a student she taught Hebrew and Bible in Jewish schools. In 1930 she earned a doctorate from the University of Marburg for a thesis on Jewish Bible translations.

That same year she moved to Mandate Palestine with her husband and settled in Jerusalem. She taught at the Mizrachi teachers' seminary until 1955 and then lectured at Bar-Ilan University. In 1957 she joined Tel Aviv University, where she later became a professor.

In 1942 she began mailing question sheets on the weekly Torah reading and returned the answers with comments. From 1954 she published her Studies, later collected into 5 books. She also spoke on Bible for the Voice of Israel radio.

She retired in 1972 and received the Bialik Prize in 1983. She died in 1997. At her request, the word teacher is written on her tombstone.