Muraoka obituary

IN MEMORIAM: Takamitsu Muraoka, Japanese pioneer of Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew studies, dies at 88. A prominent specialist in Semitic languages, Muraoka was proud to describe himself as the first Japanese student to complete a PhD at the Hebrew University (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

Japanese pioneer Hebraist Takamitsu Muraoka died last week in Leiden, the Netherlands, at age 88, after suffering a stroke a few weeks earlier and never fully recovering.

A specialist in Semitic languages and biblical Hebrew, Muraoka was proud to describe himself as the first Japanese student to complete a doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, according to Steven Fassberg, the Caspar Levias Professor of Ancient Semitic Languages at the Hebrew University’s Department of Hebrew Language, who knew Muraoka since the early 1990s.

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The article is based on an interview with Professor Fassberg.

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