Strata: What’s in a Name?

Professor Aaron Demsky of Bar-Ilan University has been awarded the 2014 Bialik Prize for Jewish Thought. The prize honors his recent book Literacy in Ancient Israel, which explores early writing and literacy in ancient Israel.

Notably, Demsky has pioneered a new branch of Jewish studies: Jewish Onomastics, which studies the use, history and origin of proper names. In 1991, he established the Project for the Study of Jewish Names.

The Bialik Prize was created in 1993 in memory of Hayim Nahman Bialik, an early 20th-century Jewish poet who wrote mainly in Hebrew.