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Samuel Iwry, 93, one of the world’s leading scholars of Hebrew and the Dead Sea Scrolls, died May 8. Iwry was professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, where he had studied as a graduate student under William Foxwell Albright, as well as a member of the faculty at the Baltimore Hebrew University and the University of Maryland.
Iwry, whose name means “Hebrew,” excelled at Hebrew studies. Born in Poland, he received a traditional Jewish education before studying at Warsaw University’s Higher Institute for Judaic Studies, where he was praised for his Hebrew-language skills. Iwry escaped the invading German army by fleeing to Lithuania and then to Shanghai via Russia and Japan. In Shanghai Iwry worked for the Jewish Agency and helped arrange the emigration of Jewish refugees in China to Palestine. He was eventually imprisoned and tortured by Japanese forces.
After the war Iwry moved to the United States and settled in Baltimore, where he was able to resume his Hebraic studies and put his language skills to good use. He first worked on a medieval Hebrew text known as the Damascus Document, which eventually proved to be a later copy of important Dead Sea Scroll fragments and thus 019important for scrolls research. “It was Albright’s knowledge and recognition that something was going on,” Johns Hopkins professor Kyle McCarter told the Washington Post, “and [Iwry’s] skills and education” that enabled Iwry and Albright to confirm the scrolls’ antiquity and importance. As more scrolls were discovered, Iwry continued to work in tandem with Albright. He also wrote the first doctoral dissertation on the scrolls. His autobiography, To Wear the Dust of War: From Warsaw to Shanghai to the Promised Land is forthcoming.
Samuel Iwry, 93, one of the world’s leading scholars of Hebrew and the Dead Sea Scrolls, died May 8. Iwry was professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, where he had studied as a graduate student under William Foxwell Albright, as well as a member of the faculty at the Baltimore Hebrew University and the University of Maryland.
