A graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, Lewis Glinert has a Ph.D. in linguistics from London University, and has held appointments at Haifa University, the University of Chicago, and at SOAS, London University, where he chaired the Centre for Jewish Studies.
He has semicha from Pirchei Shoshanim, Jerusalem.
Invited by the BBC to script and present a documentary marking 100 years since the Rebirth of Spoken Hebrew, Glinert's "Tongue of Tongues" was a BBC 1992 nomination for a SONY award.
Two of Lewis Glinert’s books on Jewish culture
"Mamme Dear" (Jason Aronson, 1997), a Jewish Book Club main selection, rediscovers one of the humblest, folksiest genres of Yiddish literature, the letter-writing manual. In Cynthia Ozick's words, "Lewis Glinert's scholarly and engagingly lively introduction and nuanced translations lead us informatively into the real world of this colorful crowd of imaginary correspondents."
Read some of Lewis Glinert’s op-eds archived at
‘Of frail old men in wheelchairs’ Mar 30, 2004
‘The language war’, January 30, 2004
