Creator Bio

Judah L. Magnes

1877–1948

The rabbi, community leader, educator, and political activist Judah Magnes was born in San Francisco and received ordination from Hebrew Union College in 1900. He served as the rabbi of Temple Israel in Brooklyn and later of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. Magnes helped to organize the American Jewish Committee (1906) and was president of the Kehillah of New York City from 1908 until 1922; in that capacity, he tried to reconcile differences between the German Jewish and the East European Jewish immigrant communities in America. In 1922, Magnes moved to Mandatory Palestine. There, he was a founder of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as its first chancellor, from 1925 to 1935, and then as its president, from 1935 to 1948. Magnes also actively worked to find a modus vivendi between Palestine’s Jewish and Arab communities and supported the founding of a binational state. The Magnes Press at Hebrew University (est. 1929) is a memorial to him.

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

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Toward Peace in Palestine

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The purpose of this article is to warn of the danger of war between Jews and Arabs, and to offer an alternative based upon a reasonable compromise. The uncompromising who believe that this collision…

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Kehillah Meeting Address

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I would like to say that this meeting is a meeting of the members of the Executive Committee and of the Advisory Council of the Kehillah. It is not a meeting that is open to the public or to the press…

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Sermon on the Melting Pot

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There is no denying that under the influence of this enthusiasm for America, the disintegrating process of the Melting Pot is taking place in large measure. That it is not, fortunately, taking place…