Avraham Even-Shoshan


Avraham Even-Shoshan was a Russian-born Hebrew linguist and lexicographer, compiler of the Even-Shoshan dictionary, one of the foremost dictionaries of the Hebrew language.

Biography

Avraham Rosenstein, later Avraham Even-Shoshan, was born in Minsk, Belarus in 1906. He attended the cheder run by his father, who later sent him to public school and yeshiva.
Rosenstein managed to avoid the British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine and settled there in 1925, where he changed his name to Even-Shoshan, a translation of Rosenstein, and initially worked as a laborer. He studied at the College for Hebrew Teachers in Jerusalem and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He worked as a teacher in Jerusalem until 1967.
In 1946-58, Even-Shoshan compiled HaMilon HeHadash, which became known as the Even-Shoshan Dictionary. The completed dictionary consisted of 24,698 main entries. He was also the author of the Even-Shoshan concordance and co-author of the Bialik concordance.
Even-Shoshan died in the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem in 1984. He was buried in the Har HaMenuchot.

Awards