Arie Leo Hanin (20 November 1913 – 21 September 2008) was a Lithuanian-American political activist. Born into a Jewish family in November 1913 in Vilna (Wilno, Vilnius), then in Russian Empire, he and his family left for

Harbin Harbin (; mnc, , v=Halbin; ) is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital and the largest city of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as the second largest city by urban population after Shenyang and largest ...

, Manchuria (northern China), in 1916. There Leo joined a Zionist group and studied Jewish history at a Jewish primary school, and then studied at a Russian secondary school. When Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, he went to Shanghai where attended a British school, and also served in the Jewish Shanghai Volunteer Corps. He was a leader of Shanghai

Betar The Betar Movement ( he, תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After t ...

, the Revisionist Zionist youth organization. In 1937, he moved to

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

, Japan, to work in a textile firm. The small Jewish community there elected him its honorary secretary. From August 1940 to November 1941 two thousand Polish-Lithuanian Jewish refugees, who were saved from the Holocaust by the Japanese viceconsul in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, arrived into Kobe. The Jewish community helped them by finding homes, donating medical supplies and clothing, and arranging, by the Polish ambassador to Japan Tadeusz Romer, their visas so they could stay on in Japan. In 1942 he returned to Shanghai and spent the rest of the war working there. He emigrated to Israel in 1948 and next moved to the United States where he became a naturalized citizen on March 9, 1962. He described the Jewish community in Kobe and its activities in a special interview in 1999. Hanin died in September 2008 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 94.Family Search: Arie Hanin in the United States Social Security Death Index
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanin, Leo 1913 births 2008 deaths American people of Russian-Jewish descent American Zionists Betar members Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Expatriates from the Russian Empire in China Jewish Chinese history Naturalized citizens of the United States Russian emigrants to Israel Jews from the Russian Empire Russian expatriates in Japan