Benjamin Akzin

Benjamin Akzin (; 6 May 1904 – 1985) was an early Zionist activist and, later, an Israeli professor of law.

Biography Akzin was born in 1904 in Riga, Latvia, then in Livonia in the Russian Empire. He completed doctorates in political science and law at the universities of Vienna and Paris. He was an admirer of Ze'ev Jabotinsky and became active in the Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement and served as secretary to Jabotinsky. Following Jabotinsky break with the Zionist Organization and his founding of the New Zionist Organization (NZO), Akzin served as head of the political division of NZO from 1936 to 1941.

In the late 1930s, Akzin travelled to the United States to complete a third doctorate at Harvard University. which went beyond earlier proposals of bombing the railroad lines leading to the camps. Although Akzin persisted in his efforts for such action to be taken, his proposals were rejected by the US administration - at least in part because the same idea had previously been rejected by leading Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Agency, whose board of directors, with David Ben Gurion in the chair, voted unanimously against the proposal on June 11, 1944.

From 1945 to 1947, Akzin served as political advisor later secretary of the US Zionist Emergency Committee.

Later, Aktzin was a founder of the University of Haifa and served as its first rector.

Awards and honours In 1967, Akzin was awarded the Israel Prize for Jurisprudence.

Selected works Problèmes fondamentaux du droit international publique (1929) The Palestine Mandate in Practice (1939) Studies in Law (editor), Scripta Hierosolymitana, Vol. V (Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1958) New States and International Organizations (1955) The Role of Parties in Israeli Democracy (1961) Torat ha-Mishtarim (1963) State and Nation (Anchor Books, 1964) The political status of Diaspora Jews (the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, 1966) Sugyot ha-Mishpat u-ve-Medina'ut (1966) Riga to Jerusalem (the Library by the World Zionist Organization, 1989) – autobiography published after his death