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Benzion Netanyahu | |
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בֶּנְצִיּוֹן נְתַנְיָהוּ | |
.jpg) Netanyahu in 1986 | |
| Born | Benzion Mileikowsky (1910-03-25)March 25, 1910 Warsaw,Congress Poland, Russian Empire |
| Died | April 30, 2012(2012-04-30) (aged 102) West Jerusalem, Israel |
| Citizenship | Israel |
| Education | Hebrew University of Jerusalem (MA) Dropsie College (PhD) |
| Occupation(s) | Encyclopedist, historian, medievalist |
| Spouse | [1] |
| Children | |
| Father | Nathan Mileikowsky |
| Relatives | Elisha Netanyahu (brother) Nathan Netanyahu (nephew) Yair Netanyahu (grandson) |
Benzion Netanyahu[a] (Hebrew:בֶּנְצִיּוֹן נְתַנְיָהוּ;né Mileikowsky; March 25, 1910 – April 30, 2012)[2][3] was an Israeli encyclopedist, historian, and medievalist, born in Warsaw. He served as a professor of history atCornell University. A scholar of Judaic history, he was also an activist in theRevisionist Zionism movement, who lobbied in the United States to support the creation of the Jewish state. His field of expertise was thehistory of the Jews in Spain. He was an editor of theHebrew Encyclopedia and assistant to Benjamin Azkin,Ze'ev Jabotinsky's personal secretary.
Netanyahu was the father of currentIsraeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu;Yonatan Netanyahu, ex-commander ofSayeret Matkal; andIddo Netanyahu, a physician, author, and playwright.
Benzion Mileikowsky[b] (later Netanyahu) was born inWarsaw inpartitioned Poland, which was under Russian control, to Sarah (Lurie) and the writer and Zionist activistNathan Mileikowsky. Nathan was arabbi who toured Europe and the United States, making speeches supportingZionism. In 1920 the Mileikowsky familyimmigrated toMandatory Palestine. After living inJaffa,Tel Aviv, andSafed, the family settled inJerusalem. Once in Palestine, Nathan Mileikowsky began signing some of the articles he wrote "Netanyahu", and his son later adopted this as his own surname. It was a common practice for Zionist immigrants at the time toadopt a Hebrew surname. Nathan Mileikowsky had also used the pen name "Nitay".[4] Benzion Netanyahu studied at theteachers' seminary and theHebrew University of Jerusalem. Although his father was a rabbi, Benzion was secular.[5] His younger brother, mathematicianElisha Netanyahu, became dean of sciences at theTechnion.
In 1944, Netanyahu married Tzila Segal (1912–2000), whom he met during his studies in Palestine. The couple had three sons:Yonatan (1946–76), former commander ofSayeret Matkal, who was killed in action leadingOperation Entebbe;Benjamin (b. 1949),Israeli Prime Minister (1996–99, 2009–2021, 2022–); andIddo (b. 1952), aphysician,author, andplaywright. The family lived on Haportzim Street in the Jerusalem neighborhood ofKatamon.[6] Tzila Netanyahu died in 2000.[7]
Benzion Netanyahu studied medieval history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. During his studies, he became active inRevisionist Zionism, a movement of people who had split from their mainstream Zionist counterparts, believing those in the mainstream were too conciliatory to the British authorities governing Palestine, and espousing a more militant, right-wing Jewish nationalism than the one advocated by the Labour Zionists who led Israel in its early years. The revisionists were led by Jabotinsky, whose belief in the necessity of an "iron wall" between Israel and its Arab neighbors had influenced Israeli politics since the 1930s. Netanyahu became a close friend ofAbba Ahimeir.[8]
Netanyahu was co-editor ofBetar, a Hebrew monthly (1933–34), then editor of the Revisionist Zionist daily newspaperHa-Yarden in Jerusalem (1934–35)[2] until theBritish Mandate authorities ordered the paper to cease publication.[dubious –discuss][9] He was editor at the Zionist Political Library, Jerusalem andTel Aviv, 1935–1940.
In 1940, Netanyahu went toNew York to serve for a few months as assistant to the secretary of Jabotinsky, who was seeking to build American support for his militant New Zionists. Jabotinsky died the same year, and Netanyahu became executive director of theNew Zionist Organization of America, the political rival of the more moderateZionist Organization of America. He held the post until 1948.[10][11]
As executive director, Netanyahu was one of the Revisionist movement's leaders in the United States during World War II. At the same time, he pursued hisPhD atDropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning inPhiladelphia (now the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania), writing hisdissertation onIsaac Abarbanel (1437–1508), a Jewish scholar and statesman who opposed the banishment of Jews from Spain.
Netanyahu believed inGreater Israel. When theUnited Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was published (November 29, 1947), he joined others who signed a petition against the plan. The petition was published inThe New York Times.[12] During that time, he was active in engaging withCongress members inWashington, D.C.
In 1949, he returned to Israel, where he tried to start a political career but failed. Relentlessly hawkish, he believed that the "vast majority ofIsraeli Arabs would choose to exterminate us if they had the option to do so".[13] In his younger days, he had been strongly in favour of the idea of Arab transfer out of Palestine.[14]
In 2009, he toldMaariv: "The tendency to conflict is the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won't allow him to compromise. It doesn't matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetual war."[15][16]
Having previously struggled to fit into Israeli academia without success, perhaps for a combination of personal and political reasons,[17] Netanyahu nonetheless continued his academic activities upon his return to Israel. Though he still was unable to join the faculty of theHebrew University, his mentor Joseph Klausner recommended him to be one of the editors of the “Encyclopaedia Hebraica” in Hebrew, and upon Klausner's death, Netanyahu became chief editor, in tandem with professorYeshayahu Leibowitz.
He returned to Dropsie College, first as professor of Hebrew language and literature and chair of the department (1957–66), then as professor of medieval Jewish history and Hebrew literature (1966–68). Subsequently, he moved first to theUniversity of Denver as professor of Hebraic studies, (1968–71), then to New York to edit a Jewish encyclopedia. Eventually he took a position atCornell University as professor of Judaic studies and chair of the department of Semitic languages and literature, from 1971 to 1975. Following the death of his sonYonatan during theEntebbe hostage rescue operation in 1976, he and his family returned to Israel. At the time of his death, Netanyahu was a member of the Academy for Fine Arts[dubious –discuss] and aprofessor emeritus at Cornell University.
Continuing his interest in Medieval Spanish Jewry,Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain and Portugal, Netanyahu wrote a book aboutIsaac Abrabanel and essays on theSpanish Inquisition and theMarranos. He developed a theory according to which the Marranos converted to Christianity not under compulsion but out of a desire to integrate into Christian society. However, asNew Christians they continued to be persecuted due toracism, not purely for religious reasons, as previously believed. He argued that what was new in the 15th century was the Spanish monarchy's practice of defining Jews not religiously, but racially, by the principle oflimpieza de sangre, purity of blood, which served as a model for 20th-century racial theories. Netanyahu rejected the idea that the Marranos lived double lives, claiming that this theory arose from Inquisition documents.[18]
Netanyahu is perhaps best known for his magnum opus,Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain. His publisher and friendJason Epstein wrote of the book:
The 1,400-page work of scholarship overturned[19] centuries of misunderstanding, and predictably it was faintly praised and in a few cases angrily denounced or simply ignored by a threatened scholarly establishment. Dispassionate scholars soon prevailed, and today Benzion’s brilliant revisionist achievement towers over the field of Inquisition studies.[20]
His obituary inThe New York Times stated: "Though praised for its insights, the book was also criticized as having ignored standard sources and interpretations. Not a few reviewers noted that it seemed to look at long-ago cases of anti-Semitism through the rear-view mirror of the Holocaust." Indeed, quite generally, Netanyahu regarded Jewish history as "a history of holocausts."[13]Origins led him into a scholarly dispute withYitzhak Baer. Baer, following earlier views, considered theAnusim (forced converts toChristianity) a case of "Kiddush Hashem" (sanctification of the name [of God]: i.e., dying or risking oneself to preserve the name of God). According to Baer, therefore, the converts chose to live a double life, with some level of risk, while retaining their original faith.[citation needed] Netanyahu, in contrast, challenged the belief that the accusations of the Inquisition were true, and considered the majority of converts "Mitbolelim" (Cultural assimilationists) and willing converts to Christianity, claiming that the small number of forced converts who did not truly adhere to their new religion were used by theInquisition as propaganda to allege a broader resistance movement.[citation needed] According to Netanyahu, Christian society had actually never accepted the new converts, for reasons of racial envy.[19]
Netanyahu was a member of theAmerican Academy for Jewish Research, theInstitute for Advanced Religious Studies and theAmerican Zionist Emergency Council. In the 1960s, he contributed to two more major reference books in English: the "Encyclopedia Judaica" and "The World History of the Jewish People."
Awarded Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Valladolid (Spain) in 2001.
Netanyahu died on April 30, 2012, in hisJerusalem home, at the age of 102. He was survived by two of his sons, seven grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.[21]
Netanyahu and his family are portrayed inJoshua Cohen's novelThe Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family (New York Review Books, 2021), set in upstate New York in 1959–60. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2022.
The Revisionist Movement, after failing to convinceItamar Ben Avi to turn his paper into their mouthpiece, foundedHa'am ("The People") in 1931, but within months it was shut down by the British authorities. They then foundedHayarden ("The Jordan") and, in 1938,Hamashkif ("The Observer").Jabotinsky was a steady contributor to these papers, and their editors included his secretary at the time, Ben-Zion Netanyahu, father ofBenjamin Netanyahu, one of the leaders of today'sLikud party.
As you know, the current Prime Minister's father was Jabotinsky's secretary, Kanan says, referring to Netanyahu's father, Benzion, a doctrinaire Revisionist.
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