17 Facts About Benzion Netanyahu

Benzion Netanyahu served as a professor of history at Cornell University.

Benzion Netanyahu was an editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia and assistant to Benjamin Azkin, Ze'ev Jabotinsky's personal secretary.

Benzion Netanyahu studied at the teachers' seminary and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 1944, Benzion Netanyahu married Tzila Segal, whom he met during his studies in Palestine.

Benzion Netanyahu studied medieval history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Benzion Netanyahu was co-editor of Betar, a Hebrew monthly, then editor of the Revisionist Zionist daily newspaper Ha-Yarden in Jerusalem until the British Mandate authorities ordered the paper to cease publication.

In 1940, Benzion Netanyahu went to New 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 Benzion Netanyahu became executive director of the New Zionist Organization of America, the political rival of the more moderate Zionist Organization of America.

Benzion Netanyahu returned to Dropsie College, first as professor of Hebrew language and literature and chair of the department, then as professor of medieval Jewish history and Hebrew literature.

At the time of his death, Benzion Netanyahu was a member of the Academy for Fine Arts and a professor emeritus at Cornell University.

Benzion Netanyahu developed a theory according to which the Marranos converted to Christianity not under compulsion but out of a desire to integrate into Christian society.

Benzion Netanyahu 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 of limpieza de sangre, purity of blood, which served as a model for 20th-century racial theories.

Benzion Netanyahu rejected the idea that the Marranos lived double lives, claiming that this theory arose from Inquisition documents.

Benzion Netanyahu is perhaps best known for his magnum opus, Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain.

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

Benzion Netanyahu died on April 30,2012, in his Jerusalem home, at the age of 102.

Benzion Netanyahu was survived by two of his sons, seven grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.