Maurice L. Perlzweig Champion of British Zionism

Maurice L. Perlzweig includes 15 autobiographical interviews the author gave to the Columbia Oral History Project in 1981-82. Perlzweig was a political activist, lobbyist and organizer, with a flair for converting English aristocrats to Judaism. He recalls his encounters with 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. In 1940 he departed with his family for America, serving as the World Jewish Congress's Director of International Affairs.

Maurice L. Perlzweig (1895-1985) gained degrees at UCL and Christ's College, Cambridge. He became second minister at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John's Wood. In 1938, he was appointed minister at the North-Western Reform Synagogue (the 'Alyth').

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