Morag (Mirkin), Shlomo

MORAG (Mirkin), SHLOMO (1926–1999), Hebrew philologist. Morag was born in Petaḥ Tikvah. He graduated in Jewish and Oriental Studies at The Hebrew University, receiving his doctorate in 1955, and also studied at the School of Oriental Languages of the Sorbonne, Paris. From 1950 he taught at The Hebrew University, and in 1975 he was appointed professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages as well as professor of Hebrew philology at the Tel Aviv University. Morag was a member of the Hebrew Language Academy. He was awarded the Israel Prize for Jewish studies in 1966. He initiated and founded a research project in the language traditions of the Jewish communities, becoming later The Jewish Oral Traditions Research Center, which is part of the Institute of Jewish Studies of The Hebrew University. He served as director of the project, which collected and studied the language traditions of the Jewish communities. Among his works are The Vocalization Systems of Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic (1962), The Hebrew Language Traditions of the Yemenite Jews (1963), and The Book of Daniel, – a Yemenite Babylonian MS (1973). A full list of his works and scientific studies was published in Meḥkarim ba-Lashon ha-Ivrit u-vi-Leshonot ha-Yehudim Muggashim li-Shelomo Morag (ed. M. Bar-Asher, 1996), 21–38; an autobiographical sketch, ibid., 7–20; and an assessment by the editor, ibid. 1–6. To this list should be added Edah ve-Lashon, vols. 21–25.

Morag's father, Moshe Aryeh Mirkin, published a long commentary on the Midrash Rabbah.