Yosef (Joseph) Babad (1905 – August 30, 1997) was an American rabbi and scholar. A prominent member of the Chicago Jewish community, he was a professor of Bible and Jewish Literature at

Hebrew Theological College The Hebrew Theological College, known colloquially as "Skokie Yeshiva" or HTC, is a yeshiva in Skokie, Illinois. Although the school's primary focus is the teaching of Torah and Jewish tradition, it is also a private university that is part of ...

in Skokie, Illinois, where he was also the dean of students and dean of the graduate school for 40 years. He wrote an authoritative book on the history of the Jews in Medieval Carinthia in Austria.

Biography

Babad was born in 1905 in

Lubaczów Lubaczów ( ''Liubachiv'') is a town in southeastern Poland, close to the border with Ukraine, with 12,567 inhabitants Situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship, it is the capital of Lubaczów County and is located northeast of Przemyśl. Othe ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. He was the scion of a rabbinic family tracing lineage to the 11th century and a direct descendant of the famed author of the ''

Minchat Chinuch Joseph ben Moses Babad (1801 – 1874) was a rabbi, ''posek'' and Talmudist, best known for his work, the ''Minchat Chinuch'', a commentary on the '' Sefer Hachinuch''. Biography Babad was born in 1801 in Przeworsk. He studied under Chaim Ha ...

'', after whom he was named. Rabbi Babad received a

doctorate of philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

in 1933, and rabbinic ordination from the Rabbinical Seminary of Vienna in 1934. He served as a district rabbi of the Carinthian Jewish community of Klagenfurt, in the

Austrian Alps The Central Eastern Alps (), also referred to as Austrian Central Alps () or just Central Alps, comprise the Main chain of the Alps, main chain of the Eastern Alps in Austria and the adjacent regions of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and Slov ...

. In 1939, Babad moved to the Netherlands, where he worked with the Vaad Hatzalah facilitating Jews in their escape from

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. During the 1940s, Babad served as a congregational rabbi in Tarentum, PA and Washington, Pa. He attended the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

, earning a master's degree in English literature in 1943. He joined the

in 1944, serving as a professor of Bible and

Hebrew literature Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews, mostly among the Arab cit ...

, and as dean of students and Graduate School Dean for 40 years. He retired in 1984, and at the age of 70, moved to Israel. According to his student, Rabbi Stewart Weiss, he said he is making an

aliyah ''Aliyah'' (, ; ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine (region), Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the Israel ...

because:

I can no longer watch from afar as our brothers in Israel daily risk their lives for our future, and not be a part of them, and so, I am fulfilling what must be the destiny of every Jew."

Babad died in Jerusalem on August 30, 1997.

Works

Babad authored various articles in scholarly publications on

Jewish philosophy Jewish philosophy () includes all philosophy carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until the modern ''Haskalah'' (Jewish Enlightenment) and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconc ...

and history in Hebrew, German and English. He also published an authoritative work on the history of Jews in medieval

Carinthia Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...

and on

Averroes Ibn Rushd (14 April 112611 December 1198), archaically Latinization of names, Latinized as Averroes, was an Arab Muslim polymath and Faqīh, jurist from Al-Andalus who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astron ...

, a contemporary of

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

. He provided testimony on pre-

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

Austrian Jewry for

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, and published a study on "

Halacha ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments ('' mi ...

and

Aggadah Aggadah (, or ; ; 'tales', 'legend', 'lore') is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly the Talmud and Midrash. In general, Aggadah is a compendium of rabbinic texts that incorporat ...

in he

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

." His articles include: * “The Jews in Medieval Carinthia. A contribution to the history of the Jews in the Alpine countries of Europe", ''Historia Judaica'' Vol VII, No 1, April 1945. * "אבן רשד בן דורו של הרמב"ם","Ibn Rushd ben Doro Shel Harambam", ''Jubilee book in honor of Samuel K. Mirsky'', New York, 1959, pp. 43–74. * "המעמדים בקארינטיה של אוסטריה דורשים כניסת היהודים לטובת ארצם","The Estates in the Carinthian Province of Austria Request Readmission of Jews in 1783 for Economic Reasons", in ''Hagut Ivrit Ba'Amerika, Studies on Jewish Themes by Contemporary American Scholars'', Edited by Dr. Menahem Zohori, Prof. Arie Tartakover, Dr. Haim Ormian, Published by Brit-Ivrit Olamit, Volume III, 1974, pp. 101–112

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Babad, Yosef 1905 births 1997 deaths 20th-century Polish rabbis 20th-century American rabbis he:יוסף באב"ד yi:יוסף באב"ד