Giulio Racah
Israeli mathematician (1909-1965)
Giulio (Yoel) Racah (Hebrew: ג'וליו (יואל) רקח; February 9, 1909 – August 28, 1965) was an Italian–Israeli physicist and mathematician. He was Acting President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1961 to 1962.
The crater Racah on the Moon is named after him.
Biography
Giulio (Yoel) Racah was born in Florence, Italy. On his mother's side, Racah's family claimed to trace its ancestry in Italy back to the destruction of the Second Temple. He earned his Doctorate from the University of Florence in 1930, and continued his studies at Rome with Enrico Fermi.
In 1939, due to application of Anti-Jewish laws in Italy, Racah emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Racah served as deputy commander of the Israeli forces defending Mount Scopus.
Racah died at the age of 56, apparently asphyxiated by gas from a faulty heater while visiting Florence.
Academic and scientific career
In 1937 Racah was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Pisa.
“Giulio Racah” enters the record as israeli mathematician (1909-1965). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Giulio, Racah and Israeli can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q635353. VIAF identifies the subject as 311217170. The Library of Congress control number is n50068310. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1965, 1961 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “Giulio Racah” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.