Ze'ev Ben-Haim

Ze'ev Ben-Haim was born in 1907 in Mostyska

He was born Ze'ev Wolf Goldman in Mościska, Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary. As a youth he studied with private tutors and later finished high school at a gymnasium, where he learned classical languages.

He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau and earned a doctorate in Semitic linguistics. In 1931 he spent a year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His 1932 doctoral work dealt with personal names in Nabataean inscriptions, and in 1933 he received rabbinical ordination.

He immigrated to Palestine at the end of 1933 and became secretary of the Hebrew Language Committee, working with Hayim Nahman Bialik. From 1948 he taught Hebrew at the Hebrew University, became a full professor in 1955 and retired in 1976. He edited the journal Leshonenu from 1955 to 1965.

In 1961 he became vice president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and head of its Historical Dictionary project, which he led until 1992. He published a five volume study of the Hebrew and Aramaic traditions of the Samaritans between 1957 and 1977. He was president of the Academy from 1973 to 1981.

He lit a torch at the Independence Day ceremony in 1990. He lived in Jerusalem until his death in 2013. He was married to Tzipora and had 2 daughters.