Magnes, Judah Leon

(1877-1948)

   Prominent Hebrew educator born in San Francisco, he was ordained as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College in 1900. An ardent Zionist, he was active in many of the American Zionist organizations prior to his settling in Palestine in 1922. He helped to establish the American Jewish Committee, which sought to speak for the Jewish community in the United States and to act in its defense against anti-Semitism, and served on its executive committee from 1906 to 1918. He was among those who helped create the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and became its chancellor in 1925. After reorganization, he became the president of the university in 1935, a post in which he remained until he died. He became an advocate of a binational state in Palestine as a means of preventing bloodshed, which he believed would be associated with efforts to establish a Jewish state, and in 1929 helped found Brit Shalom. In 1942, he founded the Ihud (Unity) Organization for better understanding between Arabs and Jews. He continued to advocate a binational state until after the establishment of Israel. Magnes died in New York.

   See also Arab-Israeli Conflict.