Harry Orlinsky

Harry M. Orlinsky (1908-1992) was the Effie Wise Ochs Professor of Biblical Literature at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the founder of the Jewish Institute asked him, in 1943, to join the faculty of the New Uork Institute, which merged in 1950 with Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati to form Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

He was the only Jewish religious scholar invited to participate in two Christian Bible translation efforts,the 1952 Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the official Bible of the Protestant movement in America. For the New Revised Standard in 1990, the group added Orthodox and Roman Catholic members.

His doctorate was from from Dropsie University in Philadelphia. He was a fellow at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the mid-1930's and then, until 1944, a professor at Baltimore Hebrew College.

He was a signatory of the open letter to the New York Times, which attacked, condemning Menachem Begin and his nationalistic Herut party, especially for the treatment of the indigenous Arabs at Deir Yassin by Herut’s predecessor Irgun.

"Ancient Israel" (Cornell University, 1954), "Understanding the Bible Through History and Archaeology" (Ktav Publishing House, 1969) and "Essays in Biblical and Jewish Culture and Bible Translation" (Ktav, 1973).

He served for many years as editor in chief of "The New Translation of the Torah" for the Jewish Publication Society of America, He also was a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature and was a founder and past president of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies and of the International Organization for Masoretic Studies.