Baruch Dayan HaEmet: Benzion Netanyahu

The father of Israel's prime minister and the author of a monumental work on the Spanish Inquisition has passed away at 102 years of age.

Benzion Netanyahu

Benzion Netanyahu, the father of Israel's prime minister and the author of a monumental work on the Spanish Inquisition, passed away in his Jerusalem home this morning. He was 102 years old.

Benzion Netanyahu’s oldest son, Jonathan, commanded the raid on Uganda's Entebbe Airport that rescued more than 100 Jewish and Israeli hostages held hostage by terrorists. The raid, which took place during America's Bicentennial celebration in 1976, was so spectacular that it overshadowed it. Jonathan Netanyahu was the only Israeli soldier killed during the raid.

Benzion Netanyahu is survived by his Benjamin, Israel's prime minister, and his family, and by Benjamin's younger brother Iddo, a radiologist, and his family.

BHis wife Cela, the mother of his three sons, passed away in 2000.

Netanyahu was a follower of Zev Jabotinsky and a proponent of Revisionist Zionism for almost all of his adult life, and had an enormous, long lasting impact on the political philosophies of his sons.

An academic, Netanyahu was a professor emeritus at Cornell University.

[Hat Tip: Dr. Gershon Mendel.]

Comments

[Yochanan Lavie]

Baruch dayan emet.

[chief doofis]

Very few people have fathered sons who have contributed more than he did. His own contributions in the field of Jewish History are enormous. T' hey nafsho t'sirura b'tsror ha'chaim!

[Rav Yitchok Issac Schlongman]

Does anyone know where he was born and grew up?

[rebitzman]

@Rav Yitchok Issac Schlongman

Warsaw

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

Is he wearing a hat because he is haredi? Or did everyone in those days wear hats?

[Bassy the Haredi Slayer]

Baruch Dayan Ha'emeth,

he did have nachas from his children, one is a national hero, another one a prime minister and black sheep is a cardiologist.

Regarding his work about the Spanish inquisition (Nobody expects it...), I had Castilian friends in school and I stayed in Barcelona. According to them the inquisition and expulsion had nothing to do with Anti-Semitism or the impurity of blood. The reason for the explosion was that after the Castilians killed and expelled the Moslem they ended up owing a lot of money to the Jews who financed the war so instead of paying them they expelled them.

[Gwendolyn]

Benzion Netanyahu's major contribution to the study of history was his work on the Spanish Inquisition, which turned the world of Inquisition scholarship on its head. Historians had long recognized that there was something very odd (besides the obvious) about the Spanish Inquisition. Unlike the other inquisitions (there was never any "the" inquisition), it was under royal, not ecclesiastical, control, and it lasted a long time, unlike other inquisitions, which tended to be temporary judicial bodies. Historians had long noted these peculiarities, but Netanyahu made the bold claim that these oddities could be explained by the fact that the Spanish Inquisition was never really about religion (as it claimed), but was motivated by political and social conflicts, which were obviously always shifting and developing. Netanyahu claimed, in other words, that it is a great mistake to take the accusations made before the Spanish Inquisition at face value. Instead, he says that it is very unlikely that the accused could have been guilty of the religious transgressions that they were accused of and this fact was probably cynically understood by everyone involved. Indeed, most of the accused were people who had been brought up as Christians and show every sign of having been quite sincere in their Christianity.

[David]

@Lubavitchers are Christians: Your are a fucking douchebag this is a discussion regarding a noteworthy person who passed away. The joke about the hat is not only not funny but out of place.

[Feh!]

Sort of funny to see a shagetz like you suddenly get spiritual and exclaim "boruch dayan haemet!"
If it were a holy rabbi you wouldn't be so inspired.
If this somehow inspires your sick soul, keep the inspiration going and do some long overdue well-deserved teshuva.
Then maybe one day someone will shed a tear for you and say boruch dayan haemet!

[ultra haredi lite]

Chief doofis,
Rav Simcha Shustal zatzal the legendary Rosh Yeshiva of Stamford, CT, passed away last week. Every one of his children is a marbitz Torah on a grand scale. Tehai Nishmasi Tzerurah Bitzror Hachaim.

[ultra haredi lite]

David,
Pardon me, but why the sudden need for reverence?

[Yaakov]

Feh!

It takes a lot of hard work to see more than just what we want to see. This is called, "confirmation bias". You really shouldn't assume things are just the way you expect. Before making vitriolic accusations you should look around and make sure that you are on solid ground.

You could look here, for example; or you could try here.

Your hatred blinds you to the truth. You imagine things a certain way and for you that's how they are. Consider the idea that you can disagree with someone, even strenuously, without dehumanizing them.

[ultra haredi lite]

Gwen the logical next step could be that they were charedim that were rightlfully being punished for their pernicious misdeeds. Like what comfortable armchair "historians" will claim about the Holocaust in a few centuries.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

Baruch dayan haemet.

Anyway, his reason's for the Spanish Inquisition are whack.

A better treatment by a former Paulist priest, Constantine's Sword.

[Feh!]

You could look here, for example; or you could try here.

Yeh, when there's an occaissional rabbi that somehow didn't upset shmarya's dormant jello mind, he'll fargin them a BD'E for the mere newsworthiness.

I'm sure one day when some tzaddik like Shimon Peres or Shulamit Aloni goes down we'll surely be treated to a BD'E.

[Ruthie]

Baruch Dayan Haemet
He was a brilliant man.

[Litvish]

Borukh dayan emes.

A wonderful man and a great Jew.

We are all in his debt for advancing the Jewish people and our state, Israel.

He makes me proud to be a Zionist.

[chief doofis]

Ultra Haredi Lite;

I have nothing (G-d forbid)against R. Schustal. I knew very little of him, nor do I know anything about his children. My tenure in the Yeshiva world ended about 35 years ago. None of my Roshei Yeshiva (and they were great people) ever mentioned the name of R. Schustal (ZL), nor did I ever meet anyone who learned in Stamford. His life probably was full of wonderful deeds and great accomplishments, but that is not the subject of this post.

I did peruse the works of Benzion Netanyahu, and my children were able to spend years of learning in Israel, thanks to people like his children.

Ein m'arvim simcha b'simcha, nor do we mix up hespedim. I don't deny anyone the right or duty to mourn any Jewish leader, but when we are discussing one of them, why toss in a different one?

[Yochanan Lavie]

Doofis: UHL was just tossing a red herring by saying, in effect, who cares about some Zionist when a "toyreh gadol" passed away. It's apples and oranges. One can mourn both these men, one of them, or none of them, depending on your ideology. But chareidim don't resort to logic; they just try to deflect the conversation with false analogies and other logical fallacies.

[Jeff]

Gwen the logical next step could be that they were charedim that were rightlfully being punished for their pernicious misdeeds. Like what comfortable armchair "historians" will claim about the Holocaust in a few centuries.

Posted by: ultra haredi lite | April 30, 2012 at 12:02 PM

You mean in the way Haredim blame the Reform movement for the Holocaust now?

[Yochanan Lavie]

I thought chareidim blame the Zionists for the Holocaust. Maybe they were in collusion? (Historical note: early reform was anti-Zionist).