Dr. William Chomsky, one of the world’s foremost Hebrew grammarians, died at his home here last Tuesday at the age of 81. Chomsky, who was chairman of the faculty at Gratz College from 1949 until he retired in 1969, had been with the school, the oldest teacher training college in the United States, since 1924. He also served as professor of Hebrew at Dropsie University in Philadelphia from 1955 to 1977.
Born in Russia, he came to the United States in 1913. He worked his way through Johns Hopkins University by teaching at a Hebrew school in Baltimore. Chomsky was a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, National Council for Jewish Education, Labor Zionist Organization of America, Histadrut Ivrith, World Union of Jewish Studies and the Conference on Jewish Studies.
Among his books are “Hebrew, The Eternal Language,” “Teaching and Learning,” and “David Kimhi’s Hebrew Grammar.” He was the father of Noom Chomsky, professor of modern languages and linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
