Jacob Pinkerfield (; 1897 – 23 September 1956) was an Israeli archaeologist and architect.
Biography Pinkerfeld was born in Przemyśl, modern-day Poland, in 1897. He joined Hashomer Hatzair in his youth and later studied architecture at the College of Technology in the city of Vienna. In 1920, Pinkerfeld briefly moved to Mandatory Palestine, where he lived with the Yishuv in Zikhron Ya'akov. He later moved back to Europe to recover from malaria and pneumonia, and soon graduated as an engineer-architect in 1925. That year, Pinkerfeld made aliyah.
Architecture Pinkerfeld worked as an architect and designer, building a large number of public structures. According to the Artlog website, "his dream was to establish a Research Institute for Jewish Art. Together with a group of friends he founded "Ganza", the Society for Jewish Craft, which later became the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore in Tel Aviv, and acted as its Director from 1950 until his death.
Archaeology He worked on excavations at :de:Tell el-Kheleifeh, which Nelson Glueck at the time had mistakenly identified as Solomon's Ezion-geber,Israel exploration journal: Israel. Miśrad ha-ḥinukh ṿeha-tarbut. Dept. of Antiquities and Museums, Universiṭah ha-ʻIvrit bi-Yerushalayim. Makhon le-arkheʾologyah, Ḥevrah la-ḥaḳirat Erets-Yiśraʾel ṿe-ʻatiḳoteha - 1996 "The chapters are: Chapter 1: Tell el-Kheleifeh 1937-1940: A Summary of the Work of Nelson Glueck and Architect Jacob Pinkerfield'; Chapter 2: The Data for Reappraisal of Glueck's Excavations'; and at the putative site of the Church of Zion on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, his findings forming the basis of Bargil Pixner's thesis of a pre-Crusader Jewish-Christian church on the site.Israel Rejects Jordan's Claim Madman Killed 3, Meriden Journal, 24 September 1956, accessed 16 August 2016 The archaeologist John Winter Crowfoot paid tribute to him in The Objects from Samaria, the final volume to emerge from the Joint Expedition at Samaria which teams from Harvard University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Palestine Exploration Fund, the British Academy, and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ) had conducted in the early 1930s.
Death Pinkerfeld was one of four Israeli archaeologists killed by Jordanian Legion soldiers in the Ramat Rachel shooting attack on 23 September 1956.
Published works The Synagogues of Eretz YIsrael. (Hebrew) Rabbi Kook Institute (1945/1946) The Synagogues of Italy. (Hebrew) Bialik Institute; (1954) Bishvili Omanut Yehudit: Sefer Zichron (Hebrew) (1957) The Synagogues of North Africa. (Hebrew) Bialik Institute (1974) Jerusalem: Synagogues and the Karaite Community.
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References
External links Jacob Pinkerfeld - 1897-1956, a concise, but detailed biography at Bauhaus.co.il (accessed April 2020) Jacob Pinkerfeld page on Hebrew Wikipedia List of works by Jacob Pinkerfeld in the National Library of Israel catalog