Burstein, Israel

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BURSTEIN, ISRAEL

BURSTEIN, ISRAEL (1891–1951), Hebraist. Born in Nadvornaya, Galicia, he studied at the University of Vienna, specializing in research on Hebrew language, the results of which he published in his book Vollstaendige Grammatik der neuhebraeischen Sprache (1929). After the anschluss of Austria by the Nazis, Burstein immigrated to Palestine in 1939 where he became an associate of the Va'ad ha-Lashon (see *Academy of the Hebrew Language). His main work Torat ha-Hegeh ba-Lashon ha-lvrit (1941) deals with Hebrew phonology. He elaborated a new method of Hebrew shorthand and a system for the fusion of Hebrew numbers (based on the Hebrew alphabet) with the commonly used (Arabic) numerals.

bibliography:

Kressel, Leksikon, 1 (1965), 197–8.