Yehezkel Kaufmann
Yehezkel Kaufmann (Hebrew: יחזקאל קויפמן; also: Yeḥezqêl Qâufman; Yeḥezḳel Ḳoyfman; Jehezqël Kaufmann) (1889 – 9 October 1963) was an Israeli philosopher and Biblical scholar associated with the Hebrew University. His main contribution to the study of biblical religion was his thesis that Israel's monotheism was not a gradual development from paganism but entirely new. Biography Yehezkel Kaufmann was born in Ukraine. His Talmudic knowledge was acquired at the yeshiva of Rabbi Chaim Tchernowitz (Rav Tzair) in Odessa and in Petrograd, and his philosophical and Biblical training were at the University of Berne. He completed his doctorate on "the principle of sufficient reason" in 1918, and had it published in 1920 in Berlin. He began teaching in Mandatory Palestine in 1928 and became Professor of Bible at Hebrew University in 1949. Primary works Kaufmann was the author of dozens of publications, almost exclusively in Hebrew. In 1920, he published Against the claims of the phenomenological approach of Husserl, but this was to be his last publication on abstract philosophy. Exile and Estrangement His first major work was Exile and Estrangement: A Socio-Historical Study on the Issue of the Fate of the Nation of Israel from Ancient Times until the Present (1930),