Maurice Orbach

Maurice Orbach (13 July 1902 – 24 April 1979) was a British Labour Party politician, who at different times was the Member of Parliament for the Willesden East and Stockport South constituencies.

Background Born to a Jewish family, Orbach was educated at technical college in Wales and as an extramural student at New York University.

Career

Public service Orbach was a lifelong member of Poale Zion (Great Britain).

He was general secretary of the Jewish Trades Advisory Council ("a committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, aimed at countering anti-Semitism in business life" during World War II) from 1940 and remained its secretary until his death.

He was chairman of Central Middlesex Group hospital management committee.

He was active in the World Jewish Congress (WJC). In 1954, on behalf of both the WJC and Winston Churchill, he went to Cairo to help save the lives of Jews sentenced to death as part of the Lavon Affair.

Orbach was elected Member of Parliament for Willesden East in 1945, serving until his defeat in 1959, and for Stockport South from 1964 until Parliament dissolved for the 1979 general election; he died two weeks later, nine days before polling day. His successor was Thomas McNally. She served as chairman of Pioneer Women (later renamed British Na'amat). She died in 1983. Son Laurence taught history at Columbia University, New York, before founding Quarto Publishing in London in 1976 and served as chairman and CEO of The Quarto Group, Inc.

Legacy

At his death in 1979, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency called him a "prominent leader of Anglo Jewry" and stated "a stalwart Zionist, he was a founder of the Labour Friends of Israel." #

Collections Orbach collected much of the material found in the Trades Advisory Council Archive, deposited at University College London. The archive contains papers relating to the activities of the Council and additional material relating to concerns the organisation responded to, particularly antisemitic and antifacist literature.