Humanities and Social Sciences Net
Sent: Thu 2/23/2012 2:13 PMSubject: Death of Prof. David WeisbergH-Judaic is greatly saddened by the news that Prof. David Weisberg(1938-2012), Professor of Bible and
Semitic languages at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, has passed away from cancer.
Prof.Jonathan Cohen of HUC-JIR has distributed the obituary notice that follows below. Prof. Weisberg
was a warm and wonderful human being, a beloved teacher, and a devoted husband and father. We extend
deepest condolences to Ophra and the entire Weisberg family.Dear colleagues and friends, it is with profound sadness that I inform you of the death of our esteemed
colleague and friend, Dr. David Weisberg, z"l,Professor of Bible and Semitic Languages at HUC-JIR
Cincinnati. Associated with the College-Institute for forty-five years, he was an internationally
renowned scholar, beloved teacher, and mentor to generations of our students.Born in New York City, Dr. Weisberg received his A.B. from Columbia College(1960), his B.H.L. from
Seminary College (1960), and his Ph.D. from Yale University (1965). He was ordained at HUC-JIR in
Cincinnati in 1977.Dr. Weisberg was Research Associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (1965-67)
prior to joining the HUC-JIR faculty in 1967.He served as Associate Editor of the Hebrew Union College Annual and President of the Mid-West Society
of Biblical Literature. During the course of his distinguished career, he was a recipient of a grant
from the International Research and Exchange Foundation to the USSR (1974)and a Woodrow Wilson
Fellow (1960-61). Dr. Weisberg travelled internationally to conduct research and present papers at
scholarly conferences.In addition to his numerous scholarly articles in Jewish Quarterly Review, Journal of the American
Oriental Society , and Yale Near Eastern Researches , he was a contributor to the Oxford New
English Bible Commentary , author of the first volume of *Yale Near Eastern Researches, and research
associate of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary . The publications he authored, edited, or to which he
contributed articles include Neo-Babylonian Texts in the Oriental Institute Collection ; Les Cités
Royales des Pays de la Bible Reconstituées ; Guild Structure and Political Allegiance in Early
Achaemenid Mesopotamia; The Late Babylonian Texts of the Oriental Institute Collection; Life and
Culture in the Ancient Near East; Slavery in Babylonia; Royal Women of the Neo-Babylonian Period; The
Tablet and the Scroll; Texts from the Time of Nebuchadnezzar; and The Three Nebuchadnezzars of the
Seventh and Sixth Centuries.For many years, Dr. Weisberg worked with the late Dr. I.O. Lehman, Curator of Manuscripts at the Klau
Library, on a project investigating HUC-JIR's collection of Biblical manuscripts of the Chinese Jews
of Kai Feng. This research stemmed from an interest in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible and
the notion that these manuscripts might reveal hitherto unknown facts about the development of the
apparatus of the Torah, and that a review of the features of these priceless documents might reveal
new pathways in Masoretic study. The results of this study were published in *I.O. Lehman, HUC mss
951-981 from Kai Feng, and a Purported Link between China and Yemen. Dr. Weisberg's interest in this
subject was further explored during his trip to China to teach at Nanjing University , at which time
he also he visited Kai Feng. His account of this trip can be found in the HUC-JIR Chronicle article at
http://www.huc.edu/chronicle/62/HUCJIR-China.pdf.
Dr. Weisberg's Founders' Day Address, presented in Cincinnati in 2002, can be found at:
http://huc.edu/faculty/faculty/pubs/dweisberg02.shtml
The College-Institute family expresses sincere condolences to Dr.Weisberg's wife, Ophra, his children Dina, Jonathan, Oren, and Avi, and the extended family.
May Dr. Weisberg's memory endure as a source of blessing to all.
JONATHAN D. SARNA, Chair, H-Judaic
