Leonard G. Montefiore

Charitable service Leonard Montefiore was active in numerous charitable, cultural, and philanthropic organisations. Chaim Bermant wrote, "He attended them all, gave money to them all, offered guidance to them all".

These organisation included: Anglo-Jewish Association – president, vice-president, chairman of the industrial committee Bernhard Baron Settlement Central British Fund for German Jewry Clifton College – governor Froebel Educational Institute – chairman 1939–1961 Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women Jewish Board of Guardians – chairman of the industrial committee Jewish Colonization Association Jewish Refugees Committee – chairman Jews’ Free School Jews’ Temporary Shelter League of British Jews Leo Baeck College – chairman Reform Synagogues Association – president West London Synagogue – reader, senior treasurer, vice-president and warden Wiener Library – founder and president

Germany and the Second World War When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and his National Socialist party seized power, it threatened the Jewish community in Germany. Montefiore was at that time co-chairman of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Board of Deputies of British Jews; the other co-chairman was Neville Laski. This committee had a tradition of protecting and supporting overseas Jews and it then established the Central British Fund for German Jewry. Another founder member was Otto Schiff, who organised the Jewish Refugees Committee, which Montefiore chaired. The wealth supporting this fund enabled a promise to be made to the British government that Jewish refugees from Germany would not be a burden on public finances. They also lobbied British society to protest against German discrimination against Jews but were not successful initially. Others wanted to organise a boycott of German goods but the Board of Deputies saw this as too extreme. There was also concern about Zionist influence, which the Board opposed as subverting their status as British. Montefiore was himself opposed to Zionism until he visited Israel in 1955.

Montefiore's fluency in the German language enabled him to study the details of the oppression of the Jews in Germany. He publicised these, writing articles, letters and pamphlets including The Jews in Germany: Facts and Figures (1934) and Exiles from Germany (1937).

In 1944, he toured the Mediterranean theatre to meet Jewish servicemen for the Welfare Branch of the War Office.

The Windermere children Montefiore organised aid for hundreds of Jewish orphans after the Second World War, acting as their guardian and arranging for them to be flown to England in heavy bombers by the RAF.