Rabbi Dr. Zerach Warhaftig, one of the founders of the National Religious Party and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, died yesterday in Jerusalem at the age of 96.
Rabbi Dr. Zerach Warhaftig, one of the founders of the National Religious Party and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, died Thursday in Jerusalem at the age of 96.
He was buried at 11 A.M. Friday at Jerusalem’s Sanhedria cemetery.
Warhaftig was born in 1906 in what was then Byelorussia. He was initially educated by his father and later studied at various Lithuanian yeshivot in eastern Europe. Warhaftig was an ordained rabbi, and he also received a doctorate in law from the University of Warsaw. He began practicing law in Warsaw in 1933.
From his youth, Warhaftig was active in the religious-Zionist Mizrahi movement, and he later held posts in various Zionist institutions in Poland. From 1936-39, he was a delegate to the Zionist Congress.
With the outbreak of World War II, he was involved in trying to rescue Polish Jews as head of the Polish Rescue Committee. He later went to Lithuania, where he helped save thousands of Jews from the Nazis – including the entire Mir Yeshiva – with the help of Japanese consul Sempo Sugihara, who agreed to issue Japanese transit visas in defiance of his government’s express orders. Eventually, Warhaftig was forced to flee to Japan himself, and there he continued his efforts to save European Jews.
In 1941, he moved to the U. S., where he served as vice president of the Hapoel Hamizrahi movement and as a member of the executive committee of the World Jewish Congress. After the war, he returned to to Europe several time to try to locate Jewish
children who had been hidden in monasteries, orphanages or with Christian families, in an effort to bring them back to a Jewish framework.
In 1947, Warhaftig moved to Jerusalem, where he did another doctorate in law at Hebrew University and also headed the legal department of the provisional government that was then preparing the country for statehood. In this capacity, he helped prepare a draft constitution for the new state. He was also a member of the provisional parliament, in which capacity he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1948.
That same year, he founded a research center for Jewish law at Hebrew University, where he served as a lecturer on the subject until 1963. But this in no way interfered with his political career: he served in each of the first nine Knessets and chaired the legislature’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for many years. His crowning achievement as a legislator was the enactment of the Law of Return.
Warhaftig served as deputy religious affairs minister from 1952-58 and as religious affairs minister in three governments, from 1961 to 1974. He was a member of the NRP’s moderate wing and pushed hard for territorial compromise.
In 1983, he was awarded the Israel Prize for his service to the country and his contribution to the study of Jewish law. An outstanding scholar, Warhaftig never let his numerous public activities keep him from devoting time to research, and he continued to be active in this field until his death, publishing several books on Jewish law. One topic he dealt with extensively in his research was the proper relationship between religion and state. He also wrote frequently on Talmudic literature.
He is survived by 3 sons, a daughter, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.