Born Binyamen Maisler in Ciechanowiec, Poland, he was educated at Berlin and Giessen universities in Germany. At age 23 he emigrated to Palestine (then under the British Mandate) and in 1943 joined the faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem whose original campus at Mount Scopus became isolated in the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Originally he also served as secretary of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society, later renamed Israel Exploration Society. Between 1951 and 1977 Benjamim Mazar served as Professor of Biblical History and Archaeology of Palestine at the new campus of Hebrew University in West Jerusalem. In 1952 he became Rector of the University in 1952 and its president for eight years commencing in 1953. Between 1968 and 1978 Professor Mazar directed extensive excavations in the Ophel and the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount. The site had been inaccessible to Israeli archaeologists until it was captured in 1967 during the Six Day War.