The Miracle of Hebrew Reborn

The scholar of medieval Hebrew Shalom Spiegel was born in Romania and received his higher education in Vienna. He taught in Mandatory Palestine from 1923 to 1929, and then settled in New York City. He taught initially at Stephen Wise’s Jewish Institute of Religion and then, until his death, at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He published work on both biblical and medieval Hebrew literature. His much-praised The Last Trial (1950) is a study of the reworking of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac in medieval Hebrew texts. Sam Spiegel, the Hollywood film producer, was his brother.