Ezra Fleischer

Ezra Fleischer (Hebrew: עזרא פליישר; 7 August 1928 – 25 July 2006) was a Romanian-Israeli Hebrew-language poet and philologist known for his pioneering research on early Hebrew piyyut and medieval Jewish liturgy. Fleischer received the Israel Prize for Literature Studies in 1959 for his contributions to Hebrew poetry and philology.

Born in Timișoara, Romania, Fleischer was active in Hebrew literary circles as a young poet before immigrating to Israel in the 1950s. He later became a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and headed the Genizah Research Institute, where he produced foundational studies on medieval Hebrew texts and liturgy.

Fleischer’s work is widely credited with reshaping modern scholarship on early Hebrew poetry, and his publications remain central to the study of Jewish liturgy.