Neville Laski

Neville Jonas Laski (born December 18, 1890 in Manchester , † March 24, 1969 ) was a British lawyer.

Life and activity

Laski was a son of the businessman Nathan Laski (1863-1941) and his wife Sarah Frankenstein. His younger brother was the political scientist and temporarily chairman of the Labor Party Harold Laski .

After attending Manchester Grammar School, Laski studied law at Clifton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, from which he graduated with a master's degree.

At the First World War Laski took the sixth part Lancashire Fusilier Regiment, with whom he in Gallipoli , Sinai was used and France. He was discharged from the military with the rank of captain .

Laski was a prominent lawyer in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. As a lawyer, he held numerous public offices, so he was from 1935 to 1956 Recorder of Burnley and from 1950 to 1956 a member of the General Council of the Bar, the legal representative body in Great Britain. In addition, there were honorary posts that he held as a Jew within the Jewish community of Great Britain: in particular, he served as chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 1933 to 1940. In addition, he was temporarily president ( chairman ) of the line of Manchester Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital , the Jewish hospital in his hometown. From 1961 to 1967 he also served as senior president of the Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews Congregation.

As one of the best-known Jews in Great Britain's public life, Laski was classified as an important target by the National Socialist police forces: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin therefore placed him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who would be killed in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles should be located and arrested by the Wehrmacht from the occupation troops following special commandos of the SS with special priority.

In the post-war period, Laski was an appeal judge (Judge of Appeal) on the Isle of Man and a judge in Liverpool (1956–1963).

marriage and family

Laski was married to Phina Emily, with whom he had four children, including the writer and television presenter Marghanita Laski .

Fonts

• The Jews of Greater Germany: An Address at a Special Meeting of the Board of Deputies of British Jews held on Sunday, July 17th, 1938 , London 1938.
• Jewish Rights and Jewish Wrongs , 1939.
• Statement by Neville Laski on Retirement from the Presidency of the Jewish Board of Deupties, 1933-1939 , 1939.
• The Laws and Charities of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews , 1952.
• Palestine, Zionism, Israel: Books from the Libraries of Judge Neville Laski, the Late Israel Cohen and Others , 1963.

literature

• William D. Rubinstein / Michael A. Jolles / Hilary L. Rubinstein: The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History , 2011, p. 549.
• Who's who in World Jewry , 1955, p. 432.