Leon Simon (politician)

Leon Simon

Leon Simon (* 1881 in Southampton ; † 1965 in London ) was a British Zionist leader and co-author of the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

Simon was the son of Rabbi Isadore Simon of the South Manchester Orthodox Synagogue , Sydney St. He attended Manchester Grammar School and studied Philosophy and Ancient History (Greats) at Oxford University to enter the public service. There he rose to the management of the General Post Office before he was retired in 1944.

Zionist and Author

Active in the religious environment of Chaim Weizmann , whose family immigrated to Manchester from Belarus , Simon belonged to the first generation of leading British Jews who preferred Zionism to conventional religiosity. Simon's mentor and friend was the protozionist Ahad Ha'am (Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg). The so-called Manchester School for Zionism , which published propaganda and tracts on Jewish nationalism, included Simon and Harry Dagut and Symon Massel, who were also children and grandchildren of rabbis. They were financed by Israel Sieff and Simon Marks ( Marks & Spencer ), edited by Harry Sacher . Herbert Sidebotham of the Manchester Guardian made some contributions .

As a member of Weizmann's Jewish Political Committee during World War I, Simon held talks with the David L. George government about the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine . His draft of the Balfour Declaration, written on paper from the London Hotel Imperial on July 17, 1917, was auctioned in 2005 by Sotheby’s for US $ 884,000 in New York.

Works

• Zionism and the Jewish Problem (1917)
• Ahad Ha-Am (1927, biography)
• Synopsis of the Haskalah Movement (1934)
• The Elements of Zionism for Young Zionists (1934)

Web links

• Manchester School , photo L. Simon
• The birth of modern Israel: A scrap of paper that changed history , The Independent , May 26, 2005

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Balfour Declaration to auction AREF