Abraham Yahuda

Infobox_Scientist
name = Abraham S. Yahuda


image_width = 250px
caption = Left to Right: Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Albert Einstein, and Abraham Yahuda at the Central University of Madrid in 1933
birth_date = 1877
birth_place = Jerusalem
residence =
nationality =
death_date = 1951
field = Writer, Linguist, Teacher
work_institution = University of Madrid, University of Berlin, New School for Social Research
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Abraham Shalom Yahuda ( _he. אברהם שלום יהודה, 1877–1951) was a Jewish polymath, teacher, writer, researcher, linguist, and collector of rare documents. He was born in Jerusalem to a Jewish family originally from Baghdad. During his early life he studied under his brother Isaac Ezekial Yahuda. In 1895, at the age of fifteen, he wrote his first book entitled "Arab Antiquities". Two years later, in 1897 he attended the First Zionist Congress in Basil, Switzerland. Afterwards he began teaching in Berlin from 1905 to 1914. Later, during the First World War, he relocated to Madrid where he continued teaching from 1915 to 1922. Eventually Yahuda would relocate once again to New York and continue his career at the New School for Social Research. Yahuda would have a notable friendship with Sigmund Freud which would lead to an extensive critique of Freud's "Moses and Monotheism".cite web
last = EDMUNDSON
first = MARK
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Defender of the Faith?
work =
publisher = The New York Times
date = September 9, 2007
url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
format = HTML
doi =
accessdate = 2008-08-03]

During his lifetime Yahuda was a notable linguist and writer, translating and interpreting many ancient Arabic documents including various works of pre-Islamic poetry and medieval Judeo-Arabic texts. In 1934 he published "The Accuracy of the Bible", a work which would spark a significant amount of international discussion. After his death in 1952 his book "Dr. Weizmann's Errors on Trial" was published. The work is a scathing attack upon Zionist policies that Yahuda had felt irreparably damaged relations between Jews and Arabs. Upon his death many of Yahuda's vast collection of rare documents were donated to the Jewish National and University Library, including about fifteen hundred documents. Much of the donated material was of Arabic origin, however, several hundred items were in ancient Hebrew as well. Also included were a number of documents from other countries, including a number of illuminated manuscripts and unpublished documents penned by Sir Isaac Newton.Citation
last = Hunter
first = Michael Cyril William
author-link =
last2 = Hunter
first2 = Michael
author2-link =
publication-date = 1998
date =
year =
title = Archives of the Scientific Revolution: The Formation and Exchange of Ideas in Seventeenth-century Europe
edition =
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publisher = Boydell & Brewer
pages = 216
page = 149
id =
isbn = 0851155537
doi =
oclc =
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=u_-5c7t3A84C
accessdate = 2008-08-03]

References

*Reeva Spector Simon, Michael Menachem Laskier, Sara Reguer. [http://books.google.com/books?id=bW7aNxCGDKQC&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=abraham+yahuda+collector&source=web&ots=9K8yoyam80&sig=u7TVTacfVTnPeDxm7MOVXAutJNY#PPA86,M1|The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times]