Sara Japhet

Sara Japhet (sometimes Sarah Yefet,; November 18, 1934 – March 27, 2024) was an Israeli biblical scholar. She was the Yehezkel Kaufmann Professor Emerita of Bible Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is considered a leading authority on the books of Chronicles by Oxford University Press.

Biography
Japhet was born in Petah Tikva to parents who had immigrated to Palestine in the 1920s. She studied at the Hebrew Teachers College David Yellin in Jerusalem and became one of the first students involved in the academic teacher training program conducted with the Hebrew University. Later, she taught immigrants to Israel at night school. She earned her PhD from Hebrew University in 1973. She has held the positions of head of the Department of Bible and head of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University and has also been the director of the National and University Library between 1997 and 2001.

Japhet won the Israel Prize in 2004 for her contribution to Biblical studies focusing on the Second Temple period. Japhet has held the position of president of the World Union of Jewish Studies since 2006.

In 2007, a Festschrift was published in her honor. Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Language Presented to Sara Japhet included contributions from Adele Berlin, Tamara Eskenazi, Gary Knoppers, David J. A. Clines, J. Cheryl Exum, Jacob Milgrom, Yairah Amit, and Emanuel Tov.

Her son Gilad Japhet is a businessman and an Israeli genealogist, CEO and founder of MyHeritage.

Sara Japhet died on March 27, 2024, at the age of 89.

Works


n.b. other titles have been written in Hebrew.