Leon Simon

Leon Simon was born in 1881 in Southampton

Leon Simon was born in Southampton in 1881. His father, Isadore Simon, was a rabbi in Manchester, and both his parents had come to Britain from Lithuania. His older brother Maurice Simon translated Jewish texts into English.

He studied at Manchester Grammar School and then at Balliol College, Oxford. In Manchester he joined a group of young Jewish intellectuals around Chaim Weizmann. With Harry Sacher he edited the newspaper The Zionist Banner, and he also edited the monthly Palestine.

In 1904 he joined the General Post Office and became Director of Telegraphs and Telephones and later Director of Savings. In 1917 he wrote a handwritten draft of the Balfour Declaration. In 1918 he went with Weizmann as a member of the Zionist Commission.

Simon supported cultural Zionism and the revival of Hebrew. He translated the works of Ahad Ha'am into English and wrote his biography. He also made Hebrew translations of Plato and of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty.

In 1946 he settled in Jerusalem and chaired the executive council of the Hebrew University. From 1949 to 1950 he was the university's president. He died in 1965.