Lord Janner, the veteran British Zionist politician, died here last night a month before his 90th birthday. He had been in a hospital for several weeks. He will be buried tomorrow in London’s Willesden Jewish Cemetery.
The outstanding figure in British Zionism since the days of the Balfour Declaration, he had twice been President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and, on his death, was honorary president of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.
He is survived by his wife, Lady Elsie Janner, a daughter, and his only son, Greville Janner, the current president of the Board of Deputies and a member of Parliament.
Born in South Wales, Barnett Janner trained as a lawyer and served in the first World War during which he was gassed.
He entered Parliament in 1931 as the Liberal member for the East End Jewish district of White-chapel. In 1936 he joined the Labor Party and remained in Parliament until 1970 when he was given a peerage. He had been knighted in 1961.
UNTIRING ADVOCATE OF ZIONISM
His period in Parliament covered the Jewish struggle against Britain’s Palestine White Paper policy and the post-war fight for the establishment of Israel. He was an untiring advocate of the Balfour Declaration and was the most steadfast and untiring advocate of the Zionist cause in British political life, a record which he maintained during his final 12 years in the House of Lords.
His interests extended to every facet of Jewish life and he was also a tireless campaigner for Jews in the Soviet Union and Arab lands. As a Parliamentarian, he was renowned for the innumerable private bills which he introduced on to the statute books. He was also active in the Inter-Parliamentary Union of which he was a past chairman.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
