Leonard Stein (1) (1887–1973)

Leonard Jacques Stein was a son of Matilda (Beaver) and Philip Stein of Manchester, England. He was educated at St. Paul's School, London, and Oxford University, where he served as President of the Oxford Union in 1910. In 1912, Stein was called to the Bar as a barrister at the Inner Temple. In World War I and afterwards, he served as an officer in the British Army from 1914 to 1920, holding positions in the Palestine Military Administration and subsequently at General Headquarters in Cairo. He was one of Britain's first Zionists, and was political secretary of the World Zionist Organization from 1920 to 1929 and a colleague of Chaim Weizmann. In 1939, he became president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, which sought to get the British government and other governments to help Jews persecuted by the Nazis. He was president of the Jewish Historical Society of England from 1964 to 1965. Stein stood as a Liberal candidate for Parliament in the 1922 and 1929 General Elections, but did not win a seat. In 1928, he married Sarah Kitay, with whom he had two sons. In 1953, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He wrote books on Zionism and edited the first volume of The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann with Gedalia Yogev in 1968.