Full Description
Maurice L. Perlzweig (1895-1985) was the eldest son of an immigrant Jewish cantor and musical composer. The young Maurice gained degrees at UCL and Christ's College, Cambridge. Having abandoned Orthodox Judaism, he became second minister at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John's Wood, also serving at its North London affiliate until 1938 when he was appointed minister at the North-Western Reform Synagogue (the 'Alyth'). Maurice L. Perlzweig is an edited version of 15 autobiographical interviews he gave to the Columbia Oral History Project in 1981-82. Although always a synagogue minister, Perlzweig was by nature a political activist, lobbyist and organiser, with a flair for converting English aristocrats to Judaism. Here he recalls his encounters with leading figures of the inter-war era, including Chaim Weizmann, Albert Einstein, Oswald Mosley, Lewis Namier, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, R.A. Butler, Viscount Melchett, Eva, Lady Reading, Jan Smuts, Charles de Gaulle, the Roosevelts, Rabbi Stephen Wise and Nahum Goldmann. His vividly described missions to the anti-Semitic regimes in Romania and Poland were both remarkable and divisive. Frequently he defied leading figures in the Board of Deputies, such as Neville Gaster, and the Anglo-Jewish establishment. In 1940 he departed with his family for America, serving as the World Jewish Congress's Director of International Affairs. During the war years Perlzweig negotiated in the (contentious) belief that the Franco regime in Spain offered the best hope of providing escape to Jewish refugees. For this he was later to come under attack.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Editor's Preface by David Caute
Chronology
List of Illustrations
1. Birth, family, school, Judaism
2. University College London, First World War, Zionism, 1917 Club
3. Research & Mentors, Jews' College, repudiates Orthodox Judaism, Morris Joseph & Reform Synagogue, Claude Montefiore, joins London Liberal Synagogue (St John's Wood) and North London affiliate as minister, studies Oriental languages at Cambridge
4. Life at Cambridge, the Union, Oswald Mosley, Cambridge politics
5. MLP meets future wife, GisÉle Mirmovitch, Zionism, conflict with Rabbi Israel Mattuck, Montefiore's support
6. B'nai B'rith, Moses Gaster, Sir Alfred Mond, Henry Melchett, Eva Reading
7. Rufus Isaacs Viscount Reading, Labour's White Paper, Eva Reading, famous converts, aristocrats and wealthy magnates
8. Henry Melchett, British politics & Zionism, Lewis Namier, North London Liberal Synagogue prayer book
9. Namier, Chaim Weizmann, Zionism, T.E. Lawrence, Nazi threat, Second World War
10. World Jewish organizations, MLP visits Palestine, visit to South Africa & Rhodesia, Memories of GisÉle Perlzweig
11. Meeting with Einstein, diplomacy, Romania, de Gaulle
12. Visits Poland, German bombs on London, R.A. Butler, journey through Spain with Nahum Goldmann
13. Franco's Spain, to New York, speaking engagements in America, Justice Brandeis, the Roosevelts, visits Mussolini's Italy, returns to London
14. Return to America 1940, anti-Semitic discrimination, diplomacy with Spain, Juan de CÁrdenas, MLP returns to Spain after the war
15. Post-war, World Jewish Congress, human rights and the UN, Warsaw 1967, Goldmann, Six-Day War & Israel
Appendix 1. Influence of Theodore Herzl
Appendix 2. MLP's Career as a London Synagogue Minister
Appendix 3. MLP on T.E. Lawrence (ed. note on Interview 9)
Appendix 4. MLP on Franco's Spain (ed. note on Interviews 12, 13, 14)
Appendix 5. (extract from Interview 15), MLP on Nahum Goldmann, German reparations & Noah Barou
Bibliography & Sources
Index
