Yona Sabar

{{Short description|Kurdistani Jewish scholar, linguist and researcher}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Yona Sabar

| native_name = {{lang|he|יוֹנָה צַבָּר}}

| native_name_lang = he

| birth_name = Yona Sabar

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1938}}

| birth_place = Zakho, Iraq

| nationality = Kurdistani Jewish

| education = Hebrew University of Jerusalem (B.A. in Hebrew and Arabic, 1963), Yale University (Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, 1970)

| occupation = Scholar, linguist, researcher

| years_active = 1963–present

| employer = University of California, Los Angeles

| known_for = Research on Jewish Neo-Aramaic and folklore of Kurdish Jews

| notable_works = The Folk Literature of the Kurdistani Jews, A Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dictionary

| spouse =

| children = Ariel Sabar

| notable_awards = Subject of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning memoir by his son, Ariel Sabar

| website = [http://nelc.ucla.edu/person/yona-sabar/ Official UCLA profile]

}}

Yona Sabar ({{langx|he|יוֹנָה צַבָּר}}; born 1938 in Zakho, Iraq) is a Kurdistani Jewish scholar, linguist and researcher. He is professor emeritus of Hebrew at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a native speaker of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic and has published more than 90 research articles about Jewish Neo-Aramaic and the folklore of the Jews of Kurdistan.

Sabar was born in the town of Zakho in northern Iraq. His family moved to Israel in 1951. He received a B.A. in Hebrew and Arabic from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1963 and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from Yale University in 1970.

His immigrant journey from the hills of Kurdistan to the highways of Los Angeles is the subject of an award-winning memoir by his son, Ariel Sabar, an American author and journalist.{{cite journal |url=http://www.jewishrenaissance.org.uk/taste-jr/my-fathers-paradise.pdf |title=From Generation to Generation: My Father's Paradise |author=Erdos, Agi |journal=Jewish Renaissance |date=October 2012 |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=48–49 |url-status=dead |access-date=2012-11-20 |archive-date=2020-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200111044358/https://www.jewishrenaissance.org.uk/taste-jr/my-fathers-paradise.pdf }} Ariel Sabar's book [http://www.arielsabar.com My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq] won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.{{Cite journal |last=Eiland |first=Murray |date=2021 |others=Interview with Ariel Sabar |title=A Harvard Professor, a Con Man,and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife |url=https://www.academia.edu/88948170 |journal=Antiqvvs |volume=41-44 |issue=3 |pages=2}}