AVINERI, YITZḤAK

AVINERI, YITZḤAK (1900–1977), Israeli grammarian and philologist. Avineri was born in the Ukraine and first came to Ereẓ Israel in 1913, and studied at the Herzliyyah Hebrew Gymnasia. He returned to Europe, however, to study in Berlin and Paris, and after graduating from the Sorbonne in mathematics, he took up permanent residence in Ereẓ Israel in 1926. Despite his proficiency in mathematics he devoted himself entirely to research in the Hebrew language, and his encyclopedic knowledge of sources made him an outstanding expert in his field. His major work Heikhal ha-Mishkalim, on which he worked for 40 years, garnered him the Prize of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but his four-volume Heikhal Rashi is regarded as his most important work. He was engaged in the preparation of a revised edition at the time of his death. His book Yad ha-Lashon is a collection of the numerous articles he published in the course of his life, arranged alphabetically as an encyclopedia of modern Hebrew linguistics and grammar. AVIN THE CARPENTER AVIN THE CARPENTER, man of outstanding piety in Babylon in the third century C.E. R. Huna said to him that as a reward for his piety, two great men would emerge from his home. This prophecy was fulfilled in the person of his sons, the two amoraim R. idi b. avin and R. Ḥiyya b. Avin (Shab. 23b). In the printed text of the Talmud he is given the title Rav but this is omitted in some manuscripts, thus suggesting that he was not a scholar. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hyman, Toledot, 96–97; Rabinovitz, Dik Sof, 7 (1875), 44. (Yitzhak Dov Gilat)