Moshe Altbauer passed away

[Moshe Taube]

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