Pinkhos Churgin (Hebrew language: ; 1894–1957) was an Israeli scholar who was the first President of Bar-Ilan University.
Biography
Churgin was born in Pohost,
Belorussia, a
shtetl near
Pinsk.
In 1907 he and his parents immigrated to Palestine, and settled in
Jerusalem.
In 1910 he went to study at the
Volozhin Yeshiva.
Churgin returned to Palestine in 1912.
In 1915 he went to the United States and taught Hebrew.
He studied as an undergraduate at
Clark University, and then at
Yale University, earning a Ph.D. 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.
He was instrumental in the development of Yeshiva University in New York City.
