Pinkhos Churgin

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Pinkhos Churgin (1894–1957) was an Israeli scholar and the first president of Bar-Ilan University. He was born in Pohost, Belorussia, a shtetl near Pinsk. In 1907 his family moved to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. In 1910 he studied at the Volozhin Yeshiva and returned to Palestine in 1912. He went to the United States in 1915 to teach Hebrew. He earned his undergraduate degree at Clark College and a Ph.D. in Semitic languages at Yale University, studying with Charles C. Torrey. His Yale dissertation, Targum Jonathan to the Prophets, published in 1927, became a classic.

Churgin helped develop Yeshiva University in New York City. He began teaching at Yeshiva University’s Teachers' Institute in 1920 and became the institute’s dean in 1924. In 1949 he was named president of the Mizrachi Organization of America. He moved to Israel in 1955 to serve as Bar-Ilan University’s first president and led the university until his death in 1957. He was succeeded by Joseph H. Lookstein.