Prof. Benjamin Akzin
- He was born in Riga on May 6, 1904.
- In 1922, while a university student in Vienna, he was among the founders of HaHever, the Zionist student association for Eastern European countries.
- In 1925, he joined the Union of Revisionist Zionists and served on the leadership of the Union in Austria, as a member of the presidium of the New Zionist Organization, and as head of its Political Department.
- In 1926, he earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Vienna, and in 1929 a doctorate in law from the University of Paris.
- In the early 1930s, he obtained an additional doctorate in law from Harvard University.
- In the early 1940s, he moved to the United States and headed the Political Bureau of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs. He was a member of the War Refugee Board and advocated for bombing Auschwitz.
- In 1949, he immigrated to Israel to teach at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a professor of political science and constitutional law and held the Lord Herbert Samuel Chair in Political Science—named after the first Jewish High Commissioner for Palestine.
- From 1950 to 1954, he served as chairman of the Israeli Association for Political Science and was dean of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University during the periods 1951–1954 and 1961–1963.
- He was one of the founders of the University of Haifa and served as its first director.
- He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa.
- In 1967, he was awarded the Israel Prize in legal studies.
- He passed away on May 12, 1985, and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.
Part of the biographical information is based on entries from Wikipedia and is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
