Moshe Altbauer passed away

[Dean Worth]

Dear Dr. Altbauer,
     Moise Taube informed me that your father has passed away. I knew him
for years on the International Committee of Slavists, long ago now, and I
have of course been aware of his work (just last week I was in Cambridge MA
with Horace Lunt, discussing the edition of Esther). Please accept my
sympathy at his passing. Sincerely, Dean Worth


At 05:52 PM 10/20/98 -0500, you wrote:
>On October 14, 1998  the prominent Israeli Slavist Moshe Altbauer,
>Professor Emeritus of Slavic Linguistics at the Hebrew University of
>Jerusalem,  passed away at the age of 94.
>Moshe Altbauer was born in Pszemysl and obtained his PhD from the
>Jagiellonian University in Cracow, where he studied with Tadeusz
>Lehr-Splawinski and Kazimierz Nitsch among others.
>Moshe Altbauer arrived in (British Mandate) Palestine in 1935, allegedly as
>member of the Polish delegation for the Maccabi Jewish Olympic Games. From
>1935 till 1948 he was totally cut off from his books, from his colleagues
>and from any possibility to pursue scholarly work. As soon as  the gates of
>the newly proclaimed State of Israel were reopened in 1948, he renewed his
>scholarly links, and resumed participation in the major Slavistic
>gatherings.
>His first publication, when he was still a student  in 1928,  was a
>³notule² in the Revue des Etudes Slaves, providing evidence from the 11th
>century Jewish commentator Rashi on the spirantization g>h in Old Czech.
>His publications range from papers on Polish lexicology to Yiddish
>dialectology and to Old Serbian and Old Church Slavonic.
>In the 60s and 70s Altbauer visited the Saint Catherine Monastery in Sinai
>(Egypt), then under Israeli jurisdiction, and inspected the Slavonic
>manuscripts therein. When new manuscripts were unearthed in the early 70s,
>Altbauer was the first to identify them and to write a short description of
>the findings. His publications of some of the newly discovered texts were
>acclaimed by one and all.
>His major project, the dearest to his heart, concerned the Belorussian
>translation of nine Old Testament books from Hebrew contained in the early
>16th century Codex Vilensis 262. Of the nine books contained in this unique
>manuscript, he was able to publish (Jerusalem 1992) only the Five Scrolls
>(Ruth, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther). The remaining
>four  (Psalms, Job, Proverbs and Daniel [the latter edited in 1905 by
>Evseev]) are still awaiting publication.
>He will be remembered both as an eminent scholar and as a kind human being.
>
>
>Messages of condolence to his family can be e-mailed to his son Danny:
>altbauer at hum.huji.ac.il
>
>