Levita, Elijah

Related Category: Hebrew Literature: Biographies

(ēlī´jə lēvī´tə) (Elya Bokher), c.1468–1549, German philologist, grammarian, and lexicographer who wrote in Hebrew. He spent most of his life in Italy, teaching Christian Hebraists. His works, including the grammatical treatise Sefer ha-Bokher (1518) and the Talmudic dictionary Sefer ha-Tishbi (1541), pioneered Hebrew and Yiddish linguistic research.