Jakob Levitzki

Jakob Levitzki, also known as Yaakov Levitsky, was an Israeli mathematician, born on 17 August 1904 in Kherson, then part of the Russian Empire. In 1912 he emigrated to then Ottoman-ruled Palestine, and after completing his studies at the Herzliya Gymnasia he travelled to Germany and in 1929 obtained a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Göttingen under Emmy Noether. After two years at Yale University he returned in 1931 to join the faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He and his student Shimshon Amitsur were each awarded the Israel Prize in exact sciences in 1953, the inaugural year of the prize, for their work on the laws of noncommutative rings. He died on 25 February 1956.