Benzion Netanyahu

Benzion Netanyahu
Benzion Netanyahu
Born	Benzion Mileikowsky March 25, 1910(1910-03-25) Warsaw, Russian Empire
Died	April 30, 2012(2012-04-30) (aged 102) Jerusalem, Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Education	Hebrew Teachers Seminary, Jerusalem, Israel, teacher's diploma, 1929 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, M.A., 1933 Dropsie College, Ph.D., 1947
Spouse	Tzila Segal (September 7, 1944 – January 31, 2000; her death)
Children	Yonatan, Benjamin, Iddo
Parents	Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky Sarah (Lurie) Mileikowsky
Notes

Benzion Netanyahu (Hebrew: בנציון נתניהו‎, IPA: [ˈbentsijon netanˈjahu]) (March 25, 1910 – April 30, 2012) was an Israeli historian. His field of expertise was the History of the Jews in Spain. Netanyahu's son is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biography

Benzion Mileikowsky (later Netanyahu) was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Sarah (Lurie) and the writer and Zionist activist Nathan Mileikowsky. In 1920 the family immigrated to Mandate Palestine. After living in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and Safed, the family settled in Jerusalem. Netanyahu studied in the David Yellin teachers seminary and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His younger brother, mathematician Elisha Netanyahu, became Dean of Sciences at the Technion. Netanyahu's father signed some of his articles with the name Netanyahu, the Hebrew translation of his first name (Hebrew for "God's gift"). It was a common practice for Israelis at the time to adopt a Hebrew name and his son adopted this family name. He also used the pen name "Nitay."

In 1944, Netanyahu married Tzila Segal, whom he met during his studies in Palestine. The couple had three sons—Yonatan (b. 1946), former commander of Sayeret Matkal, who was killed in action leading Operation Entebbe in 1976; Benjamin, (b. 1949), Israeli Prime Minister (1996–99, 2009–present); and Iddo (b. 1952), an Israeli physician, author and playwright. Netanyahu became a widower in 2000, when Tzila died. He died on the morning of April 30, 2012 in his Jerusalem home at the age of 102.

Zionist activism

During his studies, Netanyahu became active in Revisionist Zionists circles, and a close friend to Abba Ahimeir. He was coeditor of Betar a Hebrew monthly (1933–1934), then editor of the Revisionist Zionist daily newspaper Ha-Yarden in Jerusalem (1934–1935). The British Mandate authorities ordered that paper to close. He was editor at the Zionist Political Library, Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, 1935–1940. He traveled to New York and became the secretary to Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the father of the Revisionist Zionism movement. Shortly thereafter, when Jabotinsky died, Netanyahu remained in New York and continued his Revisionist activities. He was executive director New Zionist Organization of America in New York 1940–1948, the political rival of the mainstream Zionist Organization of America.

During World War II, he was one of the Revisionist movement's leaders in the U.S. At the same time he pursued his PhD at Dropsie College in Philadelphia, writing his dissertation on Isaac Abrabanel.

Netanyahu believed in Greater Israel. When the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was published (November 29, 1947), he joined others who signed the petition against the plan that was published in the New York Times. During that time, he was active in engaging with Congress members in Washington, D.C.. He returned to Palestine (now the newly-established State of Israel) in 1949, where he tried to start a political career but failed.

Relentlessly hawkish, he also believed that the "vast majority of Israeli Arabs would choose to exterminate us if they had the option to do so".

Controversial remarks

The April 3, 2009 edition of Maariv (newspaper), Israel's second largest daily newspaper, reported (in Hebrew) an interview in which Benzion Netanyahu said in referring to Arabs (as translated into English): "The bible finds no worse image than this of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases. The tendency towards conflict is in the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him any compromise or agreement. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetual war. . . If it’s possible, we should conquer any disputed territory in the land of Israel. Conquer and hold it, even if it brings us years of war. We should conquer Gaza, and parts of the Galil, and the Golan. This will bring upon us a bloody war. . ."

Academic career

Netanyahu continued his academic activities after his return to Israel. For various reasons, he did not manage to integrate into the academic faculty of the Hebrew University, but his mentor Joseph Klausner recommended him to be one of the editors of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica, and upon Klausner's death Netanyahu became chief editor.

He returned to Dropsie College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, first as professor of Hebrew language and literature, and chairman of the department, (1957–1966), then professor of medieval Jewish history and Hebrew literature, (1966–1968). He moved first to University of Denver as professor of Hebraic studies, (1968–1971), then returned to New York in order to edit a Jewish encyclopedia and eventually take a teaching job at Cornell University as professor of Judaic studies and chairman of department of Semitic languages and literatures, 1971–1975. Following the death of his son Yonatan during the Entebbe hostage rescue operation in 1976, he and his family returned to Israel. At the time of his death Netanyahu served as an associate professor at the Academy for Jewish Research, a member of the Academy for Fine Arts, and a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Cornell University.

Specializing in the golden age of Jewish History in Spain, Netanyahu is known for his opus, the Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain. Jacob Epstein writes

The 1,400-page work of scholarship overturned 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.

A New York Times obituary noted: "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". Origins led Netanyahu into scholarly dispute with Yitzhak Baer. Baer, following earlier views, considered the Anusim (forced converts to Christianity) to be 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. Netanyahu, in contrast, challenged the belief that the accusations of the Inquisition were true, and considers the majority of converts to be "Mitbolelim" (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 in a propagandistic fashion by the Inquisition to allege a broader resistance movement. According to Netanyahu, Christian society had never accepted the new converts, reasons of economic and racial envy.

Netanyahu was a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, the Institute for Advanced Religious Studies and the American Zionist Emergency Council.

Published works

• The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain. Random House. 1995.  ISBN 0679410651
• The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain. Granta. 2002.  ISBN 0940322390
• (in Hebrew) The Five Forefathers of Zionism. Yedioth Ahronoth. 2004. 
• Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher. The Jewish Publication Society. 2001.  ISBN 1-59045-425-1
• (in English) The Founding Fathers of Zionism. Balfour Books & Gefen Publishing House. 2012. ISBN 978-1-933267159

External links

• Netanyahu, Benzion - Assemblage of articles