2008 Woodie Awards
Prof. Pinkhos Churgin: A Personal Tribute
Menachem Bloch
Issue date: 4/18/05 Section: YUdaica
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Few of his generation amassed such a long list of outstanding achievements in so many Jewish intellectual and administrative areas as did Dr. Pinkhos Churgin, of blessed memory, my beloved teacher and mentor.
Pinkhos Churgin (1894 - 1957) was born in Belorussia into a rabbinic family. His father, R. Reuven Yonah, was the rabbi of Pohost, a shtetl near Pinsk. An ardent Zionist, his father decided to leave the secure life in Pohost and immigrate to Jerusalem with his family in about 1906. There Churgin celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and studied in Yeshivat Etz Hayyim before he left for study at the famous Volozhin yeshiva in Poland (later Lithuania), where he received his semikha at the age of eighteen. Eager to obtain a university education, he left Palestine in 1915 for the United States. He attended Clark College and Yale University, where he earned his PhD in 1922 in the field of Semitics, as a student of the famous researcher Charles C. Torrey. His dissertation, Targum Jonathan to the Prophets, was published by Yale in 1927 and has since become a classic. It was twice reprinted in the 1980s.
Churgin quickly entered the world of Jewish affairs and Jewish education, even before he received his PhD Over the years, he published more than 200 articles in Hebrew, Yiddish and English, as well as two further books of great importance: Targum Ktuvim (1945) and Mechkarim b'Tekufat Bayit Sheni (1949). He also founded and edited the semi-annual journal Horeb (1936-55), devoted to research in Jewish history. Always concerned with Jewish education, he was an original member of the New York Board of License for Hebrew teachers and founded the Va'ad Ha-Hinuch Ha-Haredi, which later became associated with the Mizrachi Organization of America. He also spearheaded the movement for religious day schools in the U.S. and helped found the Hebrew Teachers Seminary for Girls, later affiliated with Yeshiva as the Teachers Institute for Women. He was active in the Jewish Book Council of America and the Jewish Book Annual, and was co-editor of the Hebrew journal Bitzaron (1949-55). Always active in the Mizrachi, he was a delegate to several Zionist congresses, Vice-President, and then, in 1949, President.
Pinkhos Churgin (1894 - 1957) was born in Belorussia into a rabbinic family. His father, R. Reuven Yonah, was the rabbi of Pohost, a shtetl near Pinsk. An ardent Zionist, his father decided to leave the secure life in Pohost and immigrate to Jerusalem with his family in about 1906. There Churgin celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and studied in Yeshivat Etz Hayyim before he left for study at the famous Volozhin yeshiva in Poland (later Lithuania), where he received his semikha at the age of eighteen. Eager to obtain a university education, he left Palestine in 1915 for the United States. He attended Clark College and Yale University, where he earned his PhD in 1922 in the field of Semitics, as a student of the famous researcher Charles C. Torrey. His dissertation, Targum Jonathan to the Prophets, was published by Yale in 1927 and has since become a classic. It was twice reprinted in the 1980s.
Churgin quickly entered the world of Jewish affairs and Jewish education, even before he received his PhD Over the years, he published more than 200 articles in Hebrew, Yiddish and English, as well as two further books of great importance: Targum Ktuvim (1945) and Mechkarim b'Tekufat Bayit Sheni (1949). He also founded and edited the semi-annual journal Horeb (1936-55), devoted to research in Jewish history. Always concerned with Jewish education, he was an original member of the New York Board of License for Hebrew teachers and founded the Va'ad Ha-Hinuch Ha-Haredi, which later became associated with the Mizrachi Organization of America. He also spearheaded the movement for religious day schools in the U.S. and helped found the Hebrew Teachers Seminary for Girls, later affiliated with Yeshiva as the Teachers Institute for Women. He was active in the Jewish Book Council of America and the Jewish Book Annual, and was co-editor of the Hebrew journal Bitzaron (1949-55). Always active in the Mizrachi, he was a delegate to several Zionist congresses, Vice-President, and then, in 1949, President.