Strata: Milestone: Louis H. Feldman (1926–2017)

In March 2017, we lost a great scholar: Louis H. Feldman, the Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature at Yeshiva University. Professor Feldman was recognized around the world as the “dean” of Josephus scholars, and he contributed greatly to our understanding of Jewish life during the Hellenistic era. He published numerous books and hundreds of articles—243 are listed in RAMBI, the Index of Articles on Jewish Studies. He was a “scholar’s scholar”—a model of dedication to craft coupled with modesty and wide-ranging learning.

Feldman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, where he would also stay and earn both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at Trinity College. He then continued his education at Harvard University, where he received a doctorate in classical philology (the study of Greek and Latin languages and literatures) in 1951. Feldman returned briefly to Trinity College to teach for a couple of years before moving to New York, where he taught first at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and then at Yeshiva University. In 1956, he accepted an assistant professorship at Yeshiva University, where he would teach for some 60 years, eventually becoming the Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature.