Solomon Pinḥasoff

The polyglot Solomon Babajan Pinḥasoff (Shlomo ben Pinḥas Babajan) was born in Kabul to a family of merchants originally from Mashhad (today in Iran) and had a traditional education. In 1858, his family moved to Samarkand (today in Uzbekistan), where his Jewish studies included Bukhari (Judeo-Tajik) translations of Scripture and rabbinic commentaries. The Pinḥasoffs were active members of the Samarkand Jewish community, serving as members of the rabbinical court and as emissaries to Jerusalem. A founding member of the Jerusalem Bukhari Quarter, he permanently settled in the city with his family in 1907. In addition to his Six-Language Dictionary (Hebrew-Aramaic, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish), Pinḥasoff also wrote and translated a number of other books. He is buried on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives.