Victor Tcherikover

Victor Tcherikover was born in 1894 in Saint Petersburg

Tcherikover was born in 1894 in Saint Petersburg. His mother came from a Chabad Hasidic family. His father, Eliezer Tcherikover, was a leader of the Zionist movement in Russia, and his uncle Elias Tcherikover was a historian of Eastern European Jewry.

He studied philosophy at Moscow University and then ancient history from 1918 to 1921. From 1921 he studied at the University of Berlin under Eduard Meyer and Ulrich Wilcken. In 1925 he earned a doctorate for research on the founding of Hellenistic cities.

In 1925 he settled in the Land of Israel and became one of the first teachers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1928 he founded the department of Greek language and literature with Moshe Schwabe, and in 1930 he helped found the history department. At Oxford he deciphered Greek papyri about Jews in the Greek and Roman world.

In 1946 he received the David Yellin Prize for a book on the Jews of Egypt in light of papyrology. He died in 1958 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot. He was married to Avigail Luria from 1920 and had 2 children.