Arieh Handler: Jewish leaders meeting Margaret Thatcher, on the far left Edgar Bronfman, President of the World Jewish Congress
Arieh Handler: With wife Henny at a function for Sarah Churchill at AH's house
Arieh Handler: Wedding day in Gwrych Castle
Arieh Handler: Sister’s Wedding: Father (left)
Arieh Handler: Arieh (middle
AH
Arieh Handler: AH 2003
Arieh Handler: AH 1953 in Madrid
Arieh Handler: Function at Hyde Park for the release of Natan Sharansky from the Soviet Union
Arieh Handler: Membership card for Sophie Lisagorski when she entered Evencroft College (wife of Rabbi Louis Jacobs)
Arieh Handler: Youth Centre Training for Palestine
Arieh Handler: With Harold Wilson and Golda Meir on a visit to London
Arieh Handler: AH with Erwin Seligman from Hamburg
Arieh Handler: Arieh Handler in Sweden
Arieh Handler: Getting Visas for Jews to get to France
Arieh Handler: "10 years after the establishment of the state
Arieh Handler: AH with King Hussein of Jordan and the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, ca. mid 1990s
Arieh Handler: "Most important document in my life. Invitation 13 May 1948 just one day before State was established
Arieh Handler: Talking to a young man (name Freier)
Arieh Handler: AH with great-grandson, speaking to Tony Blair, Israel, ca. 2000
Arieh Handler: Arieh (middle
Arieh Handler: Avoncroft College
Arieh Handler: Time table of Hakhsharah Centre at Evencroft College
Arieh Handler: AH with Pinchas Rosenbaum (left of AH)
AH Annual conference of Religious Zionist movement (in the photo Dr. Burg
Arieh Handler: Function marking start of new settlement in the Negev
Arieh Handler: With mother in London. Also in the photo Abba Bornstein
Arieh Handler: Family members from Germany who settled in Israel
Arieh Handler: AH 2003
Arieh Handler: "Most important document in my life. Invitation 13 May 1948 just one day before State was established
Arieh Handler
Arieh Handler was born in 1915 in Brno, Czechoslovakia, where his father was an army officer
Born: 1915
Place of Birth: Brno
Arrived in Britain: 01/06/2026
Interview Number: 25 (S)
Experiences: Bachad , Jewish Community Leader
Interview Summary
Arieh Handler was born in 1915 in Brno, Czechoslovakia, where his father was an army officer. He grew up in Magdeburg, Germany, and attended Hoffmann’s Yeshiva in Frankfurt while also attending a state gymnasium. Arieh later combined studies at Berlin University with the Hildesheimer Rabbinic Seminary. He became the Director of the religious Youth Aliyah organisation Brit HaNoar, and organised ‘Hachscharot’ (vocational and agricultural training undertaken in view of emigrating to Palestine). Arieh was allowed to travel in and out of Germany to find places for young people on their way to Palestine. He travelled frequently to the UK to try to convince the local Jewish leadership to accept more young people from Germany. After the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) in November 1938 Arieh continued his rescue mission from London.
During the war Arieh worked from Woburn House as the Director of the youth movement Bachad (Brit Chaluzim Datiyim, English: Alliance of Religious Pioneers) and travelled widely throughout the UK to farms and camps where Bachad members lived and worked.
The biggest ‘Hachsharah’ Centre was located in Wales in Gwrych Castle. Arieh married the conductor of the youth choir from Berlin in 1940.
After the war, Arieh was involved with illegal immigration of survivors and refugees to Palestine, and eventually emigrated himself. He was present at the signing of the Israeli Independence Declaration in 1948.
In the 1950s Arieh came back to the UK and worked for an insurance company, later becoming a banker. He remained involved with the rescue of Jews, particularly from Russia and Ethiopia. He was president of the Mizrachi Federation and member of the Board of Deputies. Towards the end of his life he returned to Israel, where he died in 2011.
Place of Birth
I had relatives who … feared that the Nazis will be a force, a tremendous force, and our job was, my job was, even as a very, very young man, to tell parents, “Enable your children to get training in agriculture or any profession so that they should be able to live outside Germany” That was in 1933, when Hitler just came to power.
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