William Chomsky
William Chomsky was an American scholar of the Hebrew language. He was born in Kupil, in the former Russian Empire and settled in the United States in 1913.
From 1924 until 1969, he was a member of the faculty at the Jewish teacher-training institution Gratz College, becoming faculty president in 1932. In 1955, he also began teaching courses at Dropsie College, with which he was affiliated until 1977. He was the father of Noam Chomsky.
Early life and education
Chomsky was born in 1896 in Kupil in the Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire, the son of Meyer and Esther Korman Chomsky. His first name was Ze'ev and he was known by the diminutive Velvel, the corresponding Yiddish name for William.His father immigrated to the United States in 1908 and worked as a presser in a clothing shop in Baltimore, and the rest of the family arrived five years later. In July 1912, at age 16, William arrived in Baltimore with his mother, Essie, and sisters Fannie and Gertrude. His mother died in 1919. He worked in sweatshops in Baltimore before gaining employment teaching at the city's Hebrew elementary schools, using his income to fund his studies at Johns Hopkins University. After moving to Philadelphia, Chomsky became the superintendent of the Mikveh Israel religious school from 1923.
At Gratz and Dropsie colleges
From 1924, Chomsky taught at Gratz College, the oldest teacher-training college in the United States. He became the faculty president of Gratz in 1932. He became faculty chairman in 1949, retiring from this position in 1969. He was also a professor of Hebrew at Dropsie College from 1955-77.Chomsky was a specialist of the history of the Hebrew grammatical tradition, before and after David Kimhi. His Associated Press obituary describes him as "one of the world's foremost Hebrew grammarians". Independently, he was involved in researching Medieval Hebrew, eventually authoring a series of books on the language: How to Teach Hebrew in the Elementary Grades, Hebrew, the Story of a Living Language, Hebrew, the Eternal Language, Teaching and Learning, and an edited version of David Kimhi's Hebrew Grammar.
Described by Carlos Otero in Chomsky and the Libertarian Tradition as a "very warm, gentle, and engaging" individual, William Chomsky placed a great emphasis on educating people so that they would be "well integrated, free and independent in their thinking, and eager to participate in making life more meaningful and worthwhile for all."