Shelomo Dov Goitein

Shelomo Dov Goitein was born in 1900 in Burgkunstadt

Goitein was born in 1900 in Burgkunstadt, Germany, to a family of rabbis. His father, Eduard Goitein, was a district rabbi. He received both a Talmudic and a secular education, and after his father's death the family moved to Frankfurt.

From 1918 to 1923 he studied Arabic and Islam at the University of Frankfurt under Josef Horovitz. His doctoral thesis dealt with prayer in Islam. He was also active in a Zionist youth movement.

In 1923 he immigrated to the Land of Israel with Gershom Scholem and taught at the Reali School in Haifa. In 1928 he began teaching Islamic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and researched the Jews of Yemen. From 1938 to 1948 he supervised Jewish and Arab schools for the Mandatory education department.

In 1948 he began studying the Cairo Geniza documents. In 1957 he moved to the United States and taught at the University of Pennsylvania. His series A Mediterranean Society described Jewish life in the Middle Ages from these documents.

In 1971 he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1983. He died in Princeton in 1985.