Dr. Henry Sliosberg, Famed Lawyer, Dies in Paris at 76

Dr. Henry Sliosberg, famous lawyer and defender of Jewish rights, died today at the age of 76. He was a former president of the Jewish Community of St. Petersburg and was president of the Russian community in Paris.

Dr. Sliosberg figured prominently in several causes celebres involving the Jews. He was responsible for initiating the investigation that resulted in the vindication of Mendel Beilis in 1913 in Kiev, Russia, of “ritual murder” charges.

As president of the Jewish Community of St. Petersburg (now Lenin

grad) and as legal counsel to the Russian Ministry of Interior during the first decade of this century, he was a foremost Jewish loader and one of Russia’s outstanding lawyers.

Dr. Sliosberg led the mobilization of opinion throughout the world against the pogroms in Kishineff, Hummel and other parts of Russia about the turn of the century.

Dr. Sliosberg’s last prominent role in a legal case in behalf of the Jews was played in 1934 when he testified at a trial in Berne, Switzerland, at which the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” purporting to reveal a plot for Jewish world domination, was ruled a forgery. He testified that the “Protocols” was created and distributed by Czarist secret operatives who tried to stem the oncoming revolution by making the Jews scapegoats of the hard times in Russia.

At the time of his death Dr. Sliosberg was a practicing attorney. He had been living in Paris, except for visits to other countries, including the United States, since leaving Russia during the revolution.

The attorney visited America several times. He went to the United States in 1925 to represent the claims of a large number of persons insured by Russian branches of American insurance companies which had been nationalized by the Soviet Government. On that visit he lectured on the Jewish problem of Russia. His last visit to the United States was in 1935 when he again pressed the claims of Russians against American insurance companies.