Malvyn Benjamin
Dedicated Zionist at the forefront of anti-Soviet activism
HE WAS one of a trio of British Zionists whose support for Israel’s rightwing Likud Herut party led to the formation of Herut UK in 1970. Malvyn Benjamin who has died aged 85, joined Joe Gellert and Eric Graus in founding the party, at the same time co-creating the Tel Chai fund in support of Israel’s poor and underprivileged.
Benjamin’s political interests were unusually diverse. His heroes were Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin, but he also stood as a Liberal candidate three times; the first in the Luton by-election in 1963 at the tender age of 26 and a decade later in Barrow in Furness, one of Britain’s well-known ship-building centres, in the two elections of 1974. In Barrow he was the first Liberal candidate for 24 years and polled 19.6% of votes in the February election.
Such a broad political church said something about Benjamin’s own open-mindedness and commitment to improving society in the many spheres in which he was involved. His daughter Katherine Benjamin explained how he made an early contribution to the community as chair/president of the Inter University Jewish Federation, IUJF (precursor to the Union of Jewish Students, UJS) and rose to become vice chair of British Herut.
He was politically active on many fronts. In the 1970s, as British Jews launched protests against the Soviet Union demanding the release of refuseniks imprisoned for seeking exit visas to Israel, he and Gellert were at the forefront of anti-Soviet activism. Nothing was off-limits – from unleashing white mice at a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet in London, to loudspeaker vans blasting protests outside the embassy and the picketing of Russian tourist offices. Eric Graus was among several arrested for disorderly conduct, but it fell to Benjamin’s legal expertise to bail them out regularly.
Benjamin, himself, was proud of his years of activism and advocacy. Before Begin became Israel’s prime minister in 1977 he was shunned by many in Britain, but Benjamin and his friends did not flinch from bringing the Israeli politician to London and hosting him, at a time when he was considered persona non grata.
Benjamin was equally active in community life. He served as community chair of Hendon United Synagogue at Raleigh Close in 2002, for which he was later made Honorary Life Member of the Board. He co-chaired its Israel Society with Shirley Bloch for many years and helped organise the annual Yom Ha’atzmaut breakfast. An enthusiastic participant in Project SEED at Raleigh Close, he represented the synagogue at the Board of Deputies for many years. He was generally acknowledged as having brought to all the above roles a wealth of communal experience but also warmth, humour and insight.
Born in Streatham, south London, to Stanley and Julia Benjamin, he was the younger twin to his brother Irving. At Dulwich College he experienced virulent antisemitism, whose bitter memory he could not forget, but he was far happier when he moved to St Paul’s School for Boys, before studying law at Kings College. As a solicitor he became the UK lawyer for Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He volunteered to go to Israel at the outbreak of the Six Day War in June, 1967 – a personal dedication both to his belief in the Jewish peoples’ right to live as a free people in their own country, and to the sanctity of democracy. After that he travelled to Israel at every opportunity and even spent his honeymoon there when he married Elayne Stitcher in St Johns Wood Synagogue in 1976. They had five daughters, Alexandra, Gabrielle, Charlotte, Elizabeth and Katherine, and 12 grandchildren. He remained a governor at JFS, throughout his children’s time there.
Benjamin’s commitment to Israel, perhaps born in the crucible of the Six Day War and honed during his many visits, was reinforced by activism, a principle he instilled in his children, whether it was love of Judaism, Israel or community. He found an outlet for his eloquence in defence of Israel by duelling with political opponents on Spectrum Radio’s Jewish programme in the early 1990s.
Rabbi Mordechai Ginsbury of Hendon United Synagogue recalled Benjamin’s key involvement in his appointment to the position and praised his “urbane, caring and engaging personality”.
“He could not do enough to help us settle in, even deploying his significant local knowledge and network of contacts to try and locate a suitable home for us – his strength of personality and character shone through even the darkness of his later-life health challenges and we, like many others, were so moved and impressed by his irrepressible good humour and equanimity through his last days and weeks.”
In his daughter Katherine’s words: “He contributed to the Jewish community considerably and in many ways. He understood community in its broadest sense and was involved in such a breadth of things, whether Jewish or Israel, British or local.”
He is survived by his wife Elayne, their daughters and grandchildren.