Biography
Reform rabbi of Temple Emanu-El (New York City) and chair of the executive committee of the People's Council of America during 1917. His high-profile pacifist opposition to the war and his prominent role in the May 30-31, 1917 Madison Square Garden mass meeting of the People's Council triggered a sustained pressure campaign by the trustees of Emanu-El that forced him out of the country's wealthiest pulpit. After the war Magnes emigrated to Mandate Palestine, where in 1925 he co-founded and served as the first president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; he became a leading binationalist Zionist arguing for a single Jewish-Arab state.
