HALKIN, ABRAHAM SOLOMON

HALKIN, ABRAHAM SOLOMON (1903–1990), Orientalist and educator; brother of simon halkin . Born in Novo-Bykhov, Russia, Halkin was taken to the U.S. in 1914. He was lecturer in Semitic languages from 1928 to 1950, and from 1950 to 1970 professor of Hebrew at the City College of New York. He also taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary from 1929 to 1970. In 1970 he settled in Jerusalem. Halkin edited part two of al-Baghdādī's Muslim Schisms and Sects (al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, 1935); the Arabic original and three Hebrew versions of Maimonides' Iggeret Teiman (1952); Ibn Aknin's Arabic commentary on the Song of Songs with a Hebrew translation, Hitgallut ha-Sodot (1964); and Zion in Jewish Literature (1964). He also worked on a new critical edition and Hebrew translation of Moses Ibn Ezra's Kitāb al-Muhādara wa-al-Mudhākara, a classic work on Hebrew poetics, and wrote the introduction to a new edition of J.A. Montgomery's The Samaritans: The Earliest Jewish Sect (1968). He was editor of the Encyclopaedia Judaica's department of Judeo-Arabic literature and medieval translations. He also compiled 201 Hebrew Verbs (1970) and translated Crisis and Leadership: Epistles of Maimonides (with D. Hartman, 1985). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Schwarz (ed.), Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People (1956). (Jacob Lassner / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)