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13 - Jewish Communist, Socialist, and Maverick Lawyers

John Cooper
Affiliation:
Balliol College Oxford
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Summary

WHEREAS many Jewish solicitors viewed their profession primarily from a business perspective—and were extremely successful in both business and professional terms—another group of solicitors from the same east European background were driven by more altruistic motives, impelled by a zealous pursuit of justice on behalf of their clients or devoted to active campaigning for specific legal reform. Some of the sons and grandsons of immigrants were aroused by ‘the [Jewish] values of protest and “justice hunger”’ and were convinced of the importance of tikun olam, the ‘repair or improvement of the world’. Some members of this latter group were communists; a larger number of the outstanding Jewish lawyers from the second generation of east European immigrants were associated with the Labour Party; still others were mavericks.

Sydney Silverman (1895‒1968) was born into a struggling Liverpool Jewish family. His father, who came to Britain from Romania, was a pedlar and credit draper; his mother's family had lived in England since the eighteenth century. By dint of scholarships to the Liverpool Institute, a prestigious grammar school, where he was nicknamed ‘quicksilver’, and Liverpool University, Silverman made his own way. Like Lewis Silkin (whose career is outlined below) he was awarded a scholarship to Oxford, but decided that he was too poor to take it up. During the First World War he registered as a conscientious objector and served some time in prison for his beliefs. As a CO he found himself unable to obtain employment as a teacher in Britain, so, after completing his degree, he became a lecturer in English in Helsinki. In 1925 he returned to Britain, obtaining a degree in law from Liverpool University with distinction and qualifying as a solicitor in 1927. Not having the fee to register as a solicitor, he borrowed the money from a bank and opened an office in Liverpool in 1928. He defended working-class clients who had fallen into debt or into arrears with their rent and were threatened with eviction; he represented sailors accused of fighting at the docks; and he acted for other clients charged with burglary or murder. ‘Mr Silverman spent a lot of time in Police Courts,’ his secretary recalled, ‘and … if he wanted to make a point nobody could stop him. He constantly made the headlines. On a number of occasions he walked out of Court.

Type
Chapter
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Pride Versus Prejudice
Jewish Doctors and Lawyers in England, 1890‒1990
, pp. 329 - 343
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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