Zerach Warhaftig

Zorach Warhaftig (; ; 2 February 1906 – 26 September 2002), also spelled Zorah or Zerach, was an Israeli rabbi, lawyer, and politician. He was a signatory of Israel's Declaration of Independence. In 1940, he was one of the people who influenced the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara to issue life-saving transit visas, and later he became one of the first members of Israel's Knesset and the author of the country's Law of Return.

Early life and education Zorach Warhaftig was born in Volkovysk, in the Russian Empire (today Vawkavysk, Belarus) in 1906. The "visa" gave Warhaftig, the students and some others like Nathan Gutwirth an official travel destination which allowed Sugihara to issue Japanese transit visas.

By so doing, De Decker, Zwartendijk and Sugihara saved thousands of lives and families from the Nazis who had occupied first Poland and then Lithuania. In 1940 Warhaftig and his family travelled east from Lithuania to Japan. On 5 June 1941 the Warhaftigs left Yokohama on the Japanese ocean liner Hikawa Maru and on 17 June they landed at Vancouver, Canada. He described the trip as "a summer vacation and with the war seeming to be so far away" although, he said, "I didn't have a peaceful mind because of the strong responsibility I had to help the Jewish refugees with the troubles they faced."

Palestine (1947) and Israel In 1947, Warhaftig immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. Initially he joined the Hapoel HaMizrachi party, a religious-zionist party, and in 1949 he was elected to the first Knesset as part of the United Religious Front, an alliance between Mizrachi, Hapoel HaMizrachi, Agudat Yisrael and Poalei Agudat Yisrael. In 1948-1963 he taught Jewish Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The party contended in the 1951 elections alone. Although it won only two seats, it was included in David Ben-Gurion's coalition, and Warhaftig was appointed Deputy Minister of Religions in the fourth government. In 1956, Hapoel HaMizrachi and Mizrachi merged to form the National Religious Party. Warhaftig led the party and retained his ministerial role until the end of the third Knesset.

After the 1961 elections (the fifth Knesset) he was appointed Minister of Religions, a position he held until 1974. In 1981 he retired from the Knesset.

In 1970, he was elected chairman of the curatorium of Bar-Ilan University.

Warhaftig's arguably most important contribution to the Israeli state's character was his part in authoring the Law of Return, which defines, from the State's legal point of view (as opposed to the religious one), who is a Jew. In 1989 he received the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award from the city of Jerusalem.

The Dr. Zerah Warhaftig Institute for Research on Religious Zionism at Bar Ilan University is named for him. In 2010, a street was named after him in Har Homa neighborhood in Jerusalem.