Tributes have been paid to Lord Weidenfeld, whose death at the age of 96 has been announced.

Lord Weidenfeld fled the Nazis in Austria as a young man and joined the BBC as a wartime political commentator. He then founded the publishing company Weidenfeld & Nicolson with Nigel Nicolson in 1949. Among their early successes were Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox and James Watson's The Double Helix. He continued his involvement in the company until his death.

He was involved last year in funding Operation Safe Havens, a Barnabas Fund project aimed at resettling Middle Eastern Christians from conflict-hit regions. He told the BBC's Hard Talk programme last October that he had done so partly to repay a debt of gratitude to a British family who had taken him in when he left Austria.

"I feel very grateful to Christians who saved my life when I had to leave Nazi Austria as a 19-year-old, and a family of evangelical Christians took me in as a son," he said.

He said he felt "inadequate help" was being given to those fleeing ISIS and had said to himself: "I must do something about it."

The family who took him in were members of the Plymouth Brethren. Lord Weidenfeld told The Times: "It applies to so many of the young people who were on the Kindertransports. It was Quakers and other Christian denominations who brought those children to England.

"It was a very high-minded operation and we Jews should also be thankful and do something for the endangered Christians."

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: "I am so deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Lord George Weidenfeld, a towering figure in the Jewish community whose legacy will be one of wonderful public service, generosity and compassion."

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt of the Conference of European Rabbis said: "Lord Weidenfeld was a man who epitomised community service and leadership while his perception of the new challenges facing Europe was both unique and powerful."

He added: "One of Lord Weidenfeld's last acts – rescuing Christian families from Syria and Iraq and resettling them elsewhere – exemplifies the legacy of a man we should all endeavour to replicate."

The former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, said: "I remember a remarkable interview he gave to a newspaper on his 92nd birthday. The interviewer said to him, 'Most people if they reach your age think about slowing down. You seem to be speeding up. Why is that?' He replied, 'When you reach 92 you begin to see the door closing, and I have so much to do before the door closes that, the older I get, the faster I have to go.' And he meant it. Every few months he would be on the phone with another brilliant idea – and, whatever he undertook to do, he did. He was bold, he was visionary, he was hard working, and he was fun. He was a giant, and without him the world will seem a smaller and less vivid place."

The Marquess of Reading, Patron of Barnabas Fund, said: "Lord Weidenfeld was a dear and trusted friend to the Jewish and Christian communities and was instrumental in bringing them together in recent months to support the suffering Church in the Middle East at their time of greatest need. His lasting legacies include the establishment of the Weidenfeld Fund in return for the kindness of Christians who rescued him from the Nazis in the 1930s. His support of the Barnabas Fund's Operation Safe Havens' initiative is a testimony to his commitment to fostering friendship between Jew and Christian."