LEON NEMOY

LEON NEMOY (December 29, 1901-July 4, 1998)

            He was born in Balta, Ukraine.  He studied in Rapaport’s high school and later in university in Odessa.  In 1921 he moved to Poland and in 1923 from there to the United States.  He graduated from Yale University and did his M.A. degree there; and he went on to complete his doctor of philosophy degree.  His first publication was a work concerning the Kohut Collection of Judaica at Yale University (1927).  He contributed scholarly works to a series of journals and special publications, such as: Jewish Quarterly Review, Journal of Jewish Bibliography, Isis, Hebrew Medical Journal, and Journal of Biblical Studies, among others (all in English).  For many years, Nemoy worked as a curator of Hebrew and Arab literature in Yale University’s library.  His published writings were mainly in English.  In Yiddish he published: “A yidishe iberzetsung fun yiryehu, prog, shs״b” (A Yiddish translation of Jeremiah, Prague, 1601/1602), Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) (New York) 26 (1945), pp. 236-40; “A yidishe iberzetsung fun ‘oylenshpigl,’ prog, tts״h” (A Yiddish translation of Till Eulenspiegel, Prague, 1734/1735), Yivo-bleter 27.1, p. 198; “Sotsyale un ekonomishe faktorn in friyik karaimizm” (Social and economic factors in early Karaism), Yivo-bleter 33 (1949), pp. 95-129; “A kristlekhe imitatsye fun yedaye hapninis bekashes hamemim” (A Christian imitation of Jedaiah Hapenini’s Bakashat hamemim), Yivo-bleter 39, pp. 283-86.  Of special interest were his works: “The Yiddish Yosippon of 1564,” Yale University Library Gazette 4 (1930), pp. 36-39; Catalogue of Hebrew and Yiddish Manuscripts and Books from the Library of Sholem Asch, presented to Yale University by L. M. Rabinowitz (New Haven, 1945).  From 1956 he served as editor of Yale Judaica Series. 

Yankev Birnboym