Sara Japhet

Sara Japhet was born in 1934 in Petah Tikva

Sara Japhet was born in Petah Tikva in 1934. Her parents had immigrated in the 1920s. Her mother, Hannah, was born in Lithuania, and her father was Shmuel Nehemia Isaacson.

She attended school in Petah Tikva and the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv. She then trained at the David Yellin Hebrew Teachers College in a program run with the Hebrew University. She returned to university in 1959, finished a master's degree in 1965 and earned her PhD in 1973.

She worked in government offices and taught school before her academic career. In 1973 she became a lecturer in the Hebrew University's Bible department, and she became a full professor in 1987. She headed the Bible department, the Institute of Jewish Studies and, from 1997 to 2001, the National Library.

Her work dealt with the Book of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, and medieval Jewish Bible commentary. She received the Israel Prize in 2004 and the Burkitt Medal of the British Academy in 2023. She was married to attorney Gideon Japhet, and they had 4 children. She died in 2024.