Shlomo Morag

• In 1966, Morag was awarded the Israel Prize in Jewish studies, for his book "The Hebrew Language Tradition of the Yemenite Jews".[4] He was the youngest person to receive this prize at the time.
• In 1989, he was the co-recipient (jointly with Shmuel Abramski) of the Bialik Prize for Jewish thought.[5] He received the prize for his book "Babylonian Aramaic: The Yemenite Tradition".

The base for this book, for which Morag received the Israel Prize, was his PhD thesis. In this book he describes the Yemenite Hebrew, the traditional reading of the bible and the Mishnah.[6]

Morag distinguishes the Yemenite tradition from other Hebrew oral traditions for several reasons:

• It is the only tradition that has a clear affinity to the Babylonian Hebrew tradition. This affinity is manifested in characteristics such as the use of one vowel whereas the Tiberian Hebrew tradition differentiate two vowels: patach and segol.
• It is the only oral tradition that regularly differentiate between the Biblical Hebrew tradition, which generally adheres to the Tiberian tradition (though influenced by the Babylonian tradition that was previously the accepted tradition in Yemen), and the Mishnaic Hebrew tradition, which is mostly Babylonian (but influenced from the Tiberian tradition of the Bible).
• This tradition maintains distinctions that were lost in other oral traditions, such as the Begadkefat phenomenon and the pronunciation of shva na.

Shlomo Morag recording two Yemenite rabbis for the Jewish Oral Traditions Research Center

In his book, Morag describes the phonetic and phonological characteristics of the Yemenite tradition, and examines the effects of different Yemeni Arabic dialects on the oral traditions of Yemenite Jews from different areas of Yemen.

This book, for which Morag was awarded the Bialik Prize, describes the phonology and morphology of the Yemenite tradition of the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud. The book is based on the reading tradition of Sana'ani Jews, as recorded mainly at the Jewish Oral Traditions Research Center at the Hebrew University which Morag founded.[7]

According to Shlomo Morag, the Yemenite tradition is the best reading tradition of the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic:

• Its transmission is reliable and it preserved the phonological and morphological characteristics distinguishing it from reading traditions of texts in other Aramaic dialects: Targum Onkelos and Targum Jonathan.
• There is a considerable correspondence between this tradition and the tradition of an important manuscript of the book Halachot Psukot, which exhibits a rather archaic tradition and uses the Babylonian vocalization. This correspondence also demonstrates the Babylonian elements in the Yemenite tradition.

In his book, Morag brings evidence against the claim that the Talmud was not commonly taught in Yemen, and points out the Yemenite manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud and their value for determining the characteristics of the Yemenite tradition.