Cambridge Appoints First Jewish Professor in Study of Hebrew

When Henry VIII established a royal professorship in Hebrew nearly 500 years ago, the idea that a Jew would fill the role at Cambridge studying the ancient language of the Israelites was impossible.

- Richard Adams

"It's not surprising, if you know that at the time of Henry VIII Jews were banned from England. So that was quite a technical obstacle," said Prof Aaron Koller, who later this year will become the first Jewish occupant of the post.

Henry's motives for founding the professorship of Hebrew studies read like a chapter from Wolf Hall, bound up with the aftermath of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and England's break with the church of Rome.

Koller suspects Henry wanted to boost England's intellectual firepower after the rupture with the papacy, with Hebrew being a critical tool for retranslating sections of the Old Testament and offering competing interpretations to those used by the church in Rome.