Norman de Mattos Bentwich (1883-1971 London) was a British Zionist barrister and legal academic. From 1920 he was the British-appointed attorney-general of Mandatory Palestine. Bentwich was close to the moderate wing of the Zionist movement. He survived an assassination attempt on his life by an Arab assassin in 1929, and was forced to resign in 1931. In 1932, Norman Bentwich was appointed head of the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the 1930s he played an active role in welfare efforts for German Jewish refugees and from 1936 he was a member of the "Professional Committee" of the Council for German Jewry. He was also one of the honorary directors of the Council. The collection includes documents relating to Norman Bentwich’s public activity — mainly files of the "Council for German Jewry, London." This organization was established to help German Jews leave Germany in response to the racial Nuremberg Laws of 1935. An important part of the collection is Bentwich’s correspondence with organizations and personalities about the refugees and the emigration from Nazi Germany. The collection contains files of Bentwich's correspondence in 1936-1943 with the British statesman Lord Herbert Samuel (the first High Commissioner for Mandatory Palestine in 1920-1925). There are also requests for visas for refugees with permits to the United Kingdom, and lists with names of people, some of whom were in concentration camps, and who were waiting for the renewal of their visas. Many of these records pertains to the Kitchener Camp for the refugees on the Kent seashore. In addition, the collection contains notes and drafts by Bentwich about organizations in which he was active, documents about the situation in Poland, on religious issues, typed manuscripts of articles by Norman Bentwich, and printed materials --
Bentwich, Norman
Enlarge text Shrink textTitle |
Bentwich, Norman. |
---|---|
Contributors |
Helen C.Bentwich Herbert,Bentwich 1856-1932 Herbert Louis Samuel,Samuel Viscount, 1870-1963 University of Cambridge Great Britain. Ministry of Information Council for German Jewry (Great Britain) Hebrew University of Jerusalem Comité des délégations juives (Paris, France) Refugee Economic Corporation (New York, N.Y.) Vereeniging tot vakopleiding van Palestina-pioniers High Commission for Refugees (Jewish and Other) Coming from Germany American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation Comité voor Joodsche Vluchtelingen Kitchener Camp for Refugees Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden Central British Fund for Jewish Relief and Rehabilitation |
Notes |
Additional documentation of his activities in Mandatory Palestine are held in the Central Zionist Archives and at https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/a3dc5d98-cbf3-346a-9eb7-28e980b74213 תיעוד על פעילותו בא"י בתקופת המנדט נמצאת בארכיון הציוני המרכזי, ושיש גם את החומר הבא:https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/a3dc5d98-cbf3-346a-9eb7-28e980b74213 |
Host Item |
Bentwich, Norman - Private Collection |
Level of Description |
Fonds Record |
Biographical summary |
Norman De Mattos Bentwich was born in 1883 in London to the British Zionist leader Herbert Bentwich. Norman Bentwich was educated at St. Paul's School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied classics. In 1908 he was qualified in law, and entered the Egyptian Ministry of Justice in 1912. In 1913 Bentwich was appointed commissioner of courts in Egypt and lecturer at the Cairo Law School. During World War I he served in the British Army on the Palestine front and was demobilized with the rank of major. In 1918 Norman Bentwich became senior judicial officer in the British military administration in Mandatory Palestine, and was appointed attorney general in Palestine in 1920. Norman Bentwich was close to the moderate wing of the Zionist movement, and he survived an assassination attempt on his life by an Arab assassin in 1929. In 1931 he was forced to resign, and was appointed head of the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1932. During the 1930s he played an active role in welfare efforts for German Jewish refugees. Bentwich served as director of the League of Nations' Commission for Jewish Refugees from Germany between 1933 and 1936, and he was a member of the "Professional Committee" of the Council for German Jewry from 1936. He was also one of the honorary directors of the Council. During the Second World War, Bentwich was commissioned into the Royal Air Force, but was cashiered by sentence of a General Court Martial in 1942. He was able to join the Ministry of Information. His wife, Helen Bentwich, had a political career as a member of the London County Council. Norman Bentwich died in London in 1971. |
Ownership history |
The documents in this collection were sent to the CAHJP in January 1982 by the Central British Fund in London. In the same shipment were also the documents of O.S.E. London and the Jewish Trust Corporation, whose offices were in the same location as the Central British Fund. |
Language Note |
English Hebrew German French |
National Library system number |
990043444390205171 |
Links |
פרטים על מיקום החומר/Location&access |
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Show Next 10 Items out of 480
- Show All
-
-
תנאי השימוש:
Appropriate Conditions of Use Have Been Established for Every Archive File
The terms of use appear on the archival file page on the National Library website.
For more information about the copyright status inquiry service and terms of use for items from the Library’s collections, click here.
MARC RECORDS
Tags
- Jews -- England
- Attempted assassination -- Eretz Israel
- Aliyah, 5th (1929-1939)
- Jewish refugees -- England -- Kent
- Jewish refugees -- China -- Shanghai
- Jews -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Germany
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Eretz Israel
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Poland
- Zionists -- England -- Biography
- Jewish refugees
- Kindertransports (Rescue operations) -- England
- Jewish lawyers -- England -- Biography
- Eretz Israel -- History -- 1917-1948, British Mandate period
- London (England)
- Jerusalem (Israel)
Have more information? Found a mistake?