Scienceבנימין אקצין

Benjamin Akzin

Benjamin Akzin was a Zionist activist and Israeli professor of law and political science, a founder of the University of Haifa and the 1967 Israel Prize laureate for jurisprudence.

1904 to 1985Founding Hebrew University political scienceFirst rector of University of HaifaProposal to bomb AuschwitzIsraeli constitutional law

Born: 6 May 1904, Riga
Occupation: political scientist, jurist, university teacher
Education: University of Paris, Harvard University, University of Vienna

Benjamin Akzin was born in 1904 in Riga

Akzin was born in Riga in 1904. His parents were Meir Zvi Akzin and Zelda, née Granitz. They were murdered during the Holocaust.

He earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Vienna in 1926 and a doctorate in law from the University of Paris in 1929. He later earned another law doctorate at Harvard University.

Akzin was active in the Revisionist movement and served as secretary to Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He headed the political division of the New Zionist Organization from 1936 to 1941. In the United States he worked for the War Refugee Board and in 1944 urged the bombing of the death camps at Auschwitz, but his proposals were rejected.

In 1949 he moved to Israel and joined the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he taught constitutional law and served three terms as dean. In 1950 he founded the university's Department of Political Science. He was later a founder of the University of Haifa and its first rector.

In 1963 he drew criticism for teaching a semester at Heidelberg University, before Israel and Germany had full diplomatic relations. He won the Israel Prize in 1967 and died in 1985. He was buried at Har HaMenuchot.