R. Saul Lieberman

R. Saul Lieberman (1898–1983) was widely regarded as the greatest Talmudist of the twentieth century. Born in Motol (Belarus) and educated in the Slabodka yeshiva, he studied at the University of Kiev, settled in Jerusalem in 1928 to teach at the Hebrew University, and from 1940 served at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York — eventually as Dean of the Rabbinical School and head of the Talmud department.

His scholarship combined classical yeshiva learning with rigorous philological and historical method. His critical edition and commentary on the Tosefta (Tosefta Ki-Fshutah) is considered one of the great Jewish-studies achievements of the century, and his studies of Greco-Roman influence on Rabbinic literature reshaped the field.