Arts and entertainment •
Alec Baron (1913–91), filmmaker, playwright, founder of the
Leeds Playhouse. •
Janina Bauman (1926–2009), journalist, writer, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto. •
Jeff Christie (born 1946), lead singer and songwriter of Christie. •
Eta Cohen (1916–2012), violinist and teacher. •
Jeremy Dyson (born 1966), author and screenwriter. •
Gaynor Faye (born 1971), actress and writer best known for roles in
Coronation Street and
Emmerdale. •
Jason Feddy (born 1966), musician and cantor. •
Louise Finlay (1971–2014), head celebrity journalist for French weekly magazine
Elle. •
Paula Froelich (born 1973), journalist and author of
Mercury in Retrograde. •
Benny Green (1927-1998), jazz saxophonist, writer and broadcaster. •
Mark Knopfler (born 1949), singer-songwriter and guitarist of
Dire Straits. •
Jacob Kramer (1892–1962), Ukrainian-born painter based in Leeds. •
James Lascelles (born 1953), musician who co-founded the
Global Village Trucking Company, •
Sam Lee (born 1980), award-winning singer and songwriter. •
Elliot Levey (born 1973), theatre actor. •
Judith Levin (born 1936), landscape and still-life artist. •
Kay Mellor (1951–2022), writer and director. •
Philip Naviasky (1894–1983), artist in watercolour and oils. •
Ann Rachlin (born 1933), musician, children's author, awarded the MBE for her work with deaf children. •
Michael Roll (born 1946), pianist, first winner of the
Leeds International Piano Competition. •
Bernard Schottlander (1924–99), German-born sculptor based in Leeds. •
Samantha Simmonds (born 1972/1973),
news anchor for
Sky News and
BBC News. •
Barry Simmons (born 1948), quiz-show contestant on
Eggheads and
Brain of Britain. •
Marion Stein (1926–2014), Countess of Harewood, co-founder of
Leeds International Piano Competition. •
Frankie Vaughan (1928–99), singer and actor best known for "
Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl". •
Fanny Waterman (1920–2020), pianist, founder and director of the
Leeds International Piano Competition, president of the
Harrogate International Music Festival. •
Wendy Waterman (born 1944), pianist. •
Joash Woodrow (1927–2006), reclusive artist. •
Tamar Yellin (born 1963), author, winner of the 2007
Sami Rohr Prize.
Entrepreneurs and philanthropists •
Phillip Abrahams (1907–82), industrialist and Zionist, Chevalier of the Order of Leopold II. •
Montague Burton (1885–1952), founder of
Burton Menswear. •
Barbara Cline (born 1935), volunteer for multiple charities. •
Manny Cussins (1905–87), businessman, chairman of
Leeds United F.C. •
Henrietta Diamond (1876–1958), founded Herzl-Moser Hospital and the Leeds Ladies Zionist Association, forerunner to the
Women's International Zionist Organisation. •
Colin Glass (born 1943), Chairman of UK Israel Business. •
Paul Hirsch (1834–1908), Leeds' first Jewish Magistrate. •
John D. Jackson (1933–2013), vice-chairman of
Leeds Development Corporation,
High Sheriff of West Yorkshire. •
Neville Labovitch (1927–2002), businessman, philanthropist, awarded the MBE for his work on the Silver Jubilee Exhibition. •
Trevor Lyttleton (born 1936), founder of the charity Contact the Elderly. •
George Lyttleton (1904–90), founder of Jewish day schools in Leeds and London. •
Jack Lyons (1916–2008), businessman and philanthropist, convicted in the
Guinness share-trading fraud. •
Michael Marks (1859–1907), entrepreneur, co-founder of
Marks & Spencer. •
Simon Marks, 1st Baron Marks of Broughton (1888–1964), businessman. •
Simon Morris (born 1977), businessman, director of
Leeds United, convicted on charges of blackmail. •
Lloyd Rakusen (1881–1944), founder of
Rakusen's. •
Leslie Silver (1925–2014), paint manufacturer, chairman of
Leeds United F.C. •
Esther Simpson (1903–96), assisted European refugee academics upto and during World War II. •
Harris Sumrie (1866–1951), founder of C. and M. Sumrie Ltd. •
Arnold Ziff (1927–2004), property magnate, philanthropist,
High Sheriff of West Yorkshire 1991–2.
Politicians and Activists •
Irwin Bellow (1923–2001), Leader of
Leeds City Council 1975–9, served as
Margaret Thatcher's Minister of State for Environment/Local Government 1983–4. •
Judith Chapman, Lord Mayor of Leeds 2015–6. •
Karl Cohen (1908–73), City
Alderman, advocate for
slum clearance. •
Jack Diamond (1907–2004),
Labour and
Social Democratic Party MP for
Gloucester and
Manchester Blackley,
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, member of the
House of Lords. •
Ronald Feldman, Lord Mayor of Leeds 1991–2. •
Joseph Finn (1865–1945), trade unionist. •
Fabian Hamilton (born 1955), Labour MP for
Leeds North East,
Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament. •
Keith Joseph (1918–94),
Conservative MP for Leeds North East. •
Gerald Kaufman (1930–2017), Labour MP,
Minister of State for Industry,
Father of the House of Commons. •
Edward Lyons (1926–2010), Labour and Social Democratic Party MP for
Bradford East and
Bradford West. •
Hyman Morris (1873–1955), magistrate, Lord Mayor of Leeds 1941–42. •
Jeremy Raisman (1892–1978), administrator in the government of British India. •
Bert Ramelson (1910–94),
industrial organiser for the
Communist Party of Great Britain. •
Moses Sclare (1867–1949), secretary of the Leeds Jewish Tailors', Machinists' and Pressers' Union. •
Alex Sobel (born 1975), Labour MP for Leeds North West, shadow
Minister for Nature, Water and Flooding. •
Martha Steinitz (1889–1966), pacifist, Berlin secretary of
War Resisters' International. •
Joshua Solomon Walsh (1902–84), Lord Mayor of Leeds 1966–7.
Community leaders •
Joshua Abelson (1873–1940), minister of the Leeds Great synagogue, writer on Jewish Mysticism. •
Albert Chait (born 1986), Rabbi, recognized in 2022 New Year's Honours for services to the Jewish Community and to charity in West Yorkshire. •
Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1888–1959), first
Chief Rabbi of Ireland,
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of
Mandatory Palestine, and first
Chief Rabbi of Israel. •
Yehuda Refson (1946–2020), Rabbi, head of the Leeds
Beth din. •
Meir Rekhavi (born 1962), founder and first chancellor of
Karaite Jewish University, Hakham of Karaite Jews of Europe, member of the Karaite Religious Council in Israel. •
Pat Solk (1924–2008), charity volunteer, President of Age Concern Leeds, chair of Leeds Council for Voluntary Service and Leeds Eastern Health Authority. •
Arthur Saul Super (1908–79), Rabbi, wartime Army chaplain, chief editorial writer of The Jerusalem Post.
Military •
Julius Diamond (1896–1917), Lieutenant 7th Squadron of the
Royal Flying Corps, awarded the
Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry. •
Walter Lubelski (1886–1919), awarded the
Military Cross for service in World War I. •
Jack White (1896–1949), awarded the
Victoria Cross "for most conspicuous bravery and resource".
Holocaust witnesses and refugees •
Eugene Black (1928–2016). When he was a teenager, his family was murdered in Auschwitz. Surviving slave-labour in a
V-2 rocket factory, and a
forced march to
Belsen, post-war he was a
Marks & Spencers manager. In the 1990s he talked in schools." •
Lilian Black (1951–2020) she became chair of the Holocaust Survivors' Friendship Association and helped set up the
Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre. •
Liesel Carter (born 1935) She escaped from Germany age four, unaccompanied, via Sweden and Norway, to a foster family in Leeds, and began to tell her story from 2005. •
John Chillag (1927–2009) Raised in Hungary, he survived
Auschwitz, where many of his relatives were murdered, and a forced march to
Buchenwald. In Leeds from 1962, he published his memoirs, and spoke to 25,000 young people. •
Ruth Grant (born 1928 Cologne) was five when the
Nazis confiscated the family home and business. Witnessing the aftermath of
Kristallnacht, she followed her brother to England, with a place on a
Kindertransport. She has published her life-story. •
Leslie Hardman (1913–2008) minister at Chapeltown synagogue, as an Army chaplain entered
Belsen in 1945. He supervised the burial of an estimated 20,000 victims. Broadcasting and writing thereafter he was an early Holocaust educator. •
Arek Hersh (born 1928) is a Leeds-based Holocaust educator, who survived the
Łódz ghetto, four camps including
Auschwitz, and a
death march. He was one of the
Windermere Children. •
Joseph Henry Levey (1881–1970) A veteran of the
Boer War and
WW1, on the eve of
WW2 in 1939 he lobbied to evacuate
Berlin's ORT School. Marching in his kilt into
SS headquarters, saving many staff and students, he re-established and oversaw the school in Leeds. •
Martin Kapel (born 1930) experienced
Nazism in Leipzig; expelled by the
SS into Poland in the forest at night, he lived in an impoverished
Hasidic community soon to be eradicated. After the
Kindertransport and the
Coventry Blitz, he heard that his mother alone remained of the extended family. He is a Holocaust educator. •
Helena Kennedy (1912–2006) A Budapest dressmaker, apprenticed at Paris'
House of Chanel, she sewed for the orchestra in
Auschwitz, and after a winter march to
Belsen, for Nazi women. •
Iby Knill (1923–2022) was liberated from
Auschwitz in 1945, and settled in Leeds, working for the Home Office. She gave talks and published her life story. Her name is one of those featured on the sculpture
Ribbons, unveiled in 2024. •
David Makofski (1892–1973) was wounded in World-War I; in the 1930s he organised immigration and found work for refugees to Leeds, as chairman of the Leeds Jewish Refuge Committee. •
Rudi Leavor (1926–2021). Brought to
Shipley from Germany in 1937, Rudi qualified at Leeds in dentistry. Cantor, Bradford Reform Synagogue Life President, 50-year member Leeds Philharmonic Choir, composer of cantatas, champion of Inter-faith relations, and Berlin Jewish Museum, he was also a Holocaust educator. •
Judith Rhodes (born 1953) of Leeds made a film and gives talks, in the UK and Germany, about her mother Ursula Michel's experiences, including the
Kindertransport. •
Suzanne Ripton (born 1936) who lives in Leeds, hid during the war in Paris, into 1947, finding she had lost her parents in
Auschwitz. She has shared her experiences. •
Trude Silman (born 1929) fled age nine before the
Nazis invaded
Czechoslovakia. She lives in Leeds, where for many years she ran the Holocaust Survivors Fellowship Association, and is now its Life President. •
Marguerite Simmons (born 1906), and son
John Muller (born ) met
Hitler in 1934. •
Ernst Simon (born 1930) experienced
Kristallnacht, and arrived from Austria on the
Kindertransport in 1939, followed by his family. He has been recognized for services to Holocaust Education. •
Heinz Skyte (1920–2020) was a refugee from
Nazi Germany who pioneered the concept of
sheltered housing in Leeds. Founder-chairman of the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association, he frequently talked in schools.
Sports •
Manny Cussins (1905–87) furniture magnate and philanthropist, chaired
Leeds United 1972–83. •
Les Gaunt (1918–1985, aka Les Goldberg) Born in Leeds (Chapeltown), he played as Right Back for Leeds United FC from the 1930s, with two England Schoolboy caps, and returned from war service in India. After 33 appearances, he left for Reading FC in 1947. He changed his name by deed poll to Les Gaunt •
Gerald Krasner (born 1949), an insolvency accountant and
Leeds United-fan, became chairman and led the 2004 financial rescue of the club; thereafter he was a specialist in managing imminent football bankruptcies. •
Wilf Rosenberg (1934–2019), a South African Rugby Union international, made 81 appearances for
Leeds RLFC, helping the club to its first championship 1960–1. •
Bernard Shooman (born 1935) is a former Rugby League referee.
Physicians •
Saul Adler (1895–1966) was son to a Russian Rabbi in Leeds, studying medicine locally. As a wartime army doctor in Mesopotamia, after Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, he became the world authority on
Leishmaniasis, Professor at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1928–55. •
Major Myer Coplans (1879–1961). Demonstrator in bacteriology and public health at Leeds University, research on contamination and purification led him, in the First World War, to command the first mobile hygiene laboratory, with effective typhoid prevention in the field, and multiple European honours. •
Max Hamilton (1912–88) became Professor of Psychiatry at Leeds 1963–77; a pioneer in psychometrics, the
Hamilton Depression and Anxiety Scales are used worldwide. •
Augusta Landman (1893–1966) Born in Leeds as Augusta Umanski, she was the first woman to qualify from
Leeds Medical School, and later a pioneer of family planning and marriage guidance in London. •
Monty Losowsky (1931–2020) led the establishment of Europe's largest teaching hospital,
St James's in Leeds. He qualified at Leeds, returning to be its specialist in
liver disease and a professor of medicine and later Dean of the
medical school. •
Ivor Meyer Quest (1928–93) a GP from Liverpool, became senior Police Surgeon in Leeds, and helped develop the
Medical Protection Society. •
James Shapiro (born Leeds 1962) is a Canadian liver and pancreas surgeon known for the
Edmonton protocol transplant for diabetes. Professor at the
University of Alberta, among his awards are
Hunterian Professorship at the Royal College of Surgeons. •
Alan Silman (born 1951) is an
epidemiologist and
rheumatologist, professor of Musculoskeletal Health at
Oxford University. He chairs Appeal Panels for
NICE and edits major textbooks. •
Arnold Sorsby (1900–80) was Polish-born, studied medicine at Leeds in 1929, to become a noted eye surgeon, geneticist and Government advisor. •
Maurice Sorsby (1898–1949) a physician at Leeds (1927), published widely, and organised pre-war medical relief for victims of Nazism. •
Kurt Zinnemann (1908–88) Dismissed from his medical post by the Nazis, interrogated and imprisoned in Moscow, interned on the Isle of Man, he settled in Leeds, to become Professor of
Bacteriology, world expert on
Haemophilus infection, and leader in medical teaching.
Lawyers •
Sue Baker, senior Magistrate. •
Stanley Berwin (1926–88), lawyer, founder of firms
Berwin & Co and
SJ Berwin, director at
NM Rothschild bank, deputy chairman at
British Land. •
Barrington Black (born 1932), member of the
Supreme Court of Gibraltar. •
Arthur Sigismund Diamond (1897–1978),
Master of the Supreme Court. •
John Dyson, Lord Dyson (born 1943),
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. •
Neil Franklin (born 1948), longest-serving Chief
Crown Prosecutor for England up to 2011. •
Martin Goldman (born 1964), Chief
Crown Prosecutor for North-West England. •
Alter Max Hurwitz (1889–1970), barrister named in the Nazi
black book of 1940. •
Jerry Pearlman (1933–2018), solicitor, national Vice President of the Ramblers, advocate for the
right to roam. •
Julius Stone (1907–1985), international law professor in Australia. •
Marilyn Stowe (born 1957), lawyer specialising in family law.
Other professionals •
Basil Gillinson (1925–2001) studied at Leeds School of Architecture, and ran a practice in Leeds known for the
Merrion Centre in Leeds, and many other landmark UK modernist leisure facilities. •
Joe Glucksmann (1912–70) headmaster of Woodhouse County Secondary School, and honorary life officer of Beth Hamedrash Hagad synagogue was recognized in the
Queen's 1966 birthday honours.
Academics •
Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) was a sociologist and philosopher, driven out by the 1968 Polish purge, who became Professor of Sociology at Leeds, later emeritus. Bauman wrote on modernity and the Holocaust, postmodern consumerism, globalisation and morality. The University of Leeds established the Bauman Institute in his honour. •
Jeremy Baumberg (born 1967), is Professor of
Nanoscience at
Cambridge University's
Cavendish Laboratory, Director of the
Nanophotonics Centre, and also a science broadcaster. His awards include the
Faraday Medal. •
Simon Baumberg (1940–2007) was professor of bacterial genetics at Leeds University, and among many roles, chair of the
Medical Research Council Advisory Board; he was also an active participant in local Jewish communal life. •
Selig Brodetsky (1888–1954) was a Russian-born Professor of Mathematics at Leeds 1924–48, a leading member of the
World Zionist Organization, the president of the
Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the second president of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. •
Julius B. Cohen (1859–1935) was born in Manchester; in Leeds from 1885 he was Professor of
Organic chemistry 1904–24. As well as authoring organic chemistry textbooks, he campaigned against air pollution. •
Frank Felsenstein (born 1944, London) of the Leeds Centre for Jewish Studies, previously Reader in 18th century studies 1971–98 at Leeds. •
Eugene Grebenik (1919–2001) An expert on demography and professor of social studies at Leeds University 1954–70, he was the first principal of the
Civil Service College, and president of the
British Society for Population Studies. •
Erika Harris Her Slovak parents survived
Auschwitz and
Sachsenhausen. She is an academic expert in European nationalism. She studied at Leeds University and became Professor of Politics at Liverpool University. •
Benedikt Isserlin (1916–2005) son of famous Munich psychiatrist , headed the Department of Semitic Studies at Leeds University, where he worked for 30 years. An archaeologist and linguist, he excavated in North Africa and the Far East, including the
Phoenician site in
Motya. •
Walter Kellermann (1915–2012) Born to a Berlin Rabbi, he graduated in Vienna and escaped to England. He made a contribution to the
Theory of Solids, before at Leeds from 1949, he led important work on cosmic rays (often out on the
Pennines). He was involved in University administration, the Leeds Reform Jewish community, and the
Fabian Society. •
Hyam Maccoby (1924–2004), scholar of Jewish and Christian tradition, was grandson of the Kamenitzer
Maggid. After war service librarian of
Leo Baeck College, London, in retirement he joined the Centre for Jewish Studies, Leeds. He viewed Jesus as a mainstream Jewish messiah claimant, executed by the Romans, with Christianity entirely founded by Paul, a Hellenist. He wrote the play and film
The Disputation. •
Aryeh Newman (1924–2020) Born in Leeds, went to
Cambridge, was an Israeli scholar, expert on Judaica and linguistics, also an ordained rabbi. After working at the
Jewish Agency, he joined the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is known for translation of the writings of
Nehama Leibowitz. •
Jonathan Newman is a filmmaker and writer, trained at the
Northern Film School in
Leeds, whose work includes the critically acclaimed
Foster, winner Best Feature film at the Rhode Island Film Festival. •
Griselda Pollock (born 1949) came to Leeds in 1997, professor of social and critical art history, and Director of the Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History at Leeds University. •
Jay Prosser (born 1966) is reader in humanities at the University of Leeds, winner of the 2020 Rowley Prize for ''Empire's Loving Strangers'', a biography that explores his Jewish family's experiences and connections across empires and centuries. •
Geoffrey Raisman (1939–2017), born to a Leeds tailor who worked for Burton's, attended
Roundhay School, went to
Oxford. He was a
neuroscientist, who demonstrated the plasticity of nerve synapses and the mechanisms of nerve regeneration. •
Philip Saffman FRS (1931–2008) born in Leeds, educated at
Roundhay Grammar School, studied at
Cambridge, was a mathematician eventually at the
California Institute of Technology; he was a world-leading figure in fluid mechanics and vortex dynamics. •
David A. Shapiro (born 1945), Professor of Psychology at Leeds University 1995–2006, son of
Monte Shapiro, led the Sheffield-Leeds Psychotherapy Research Programme. • Max Silverman (born London) is Professor of French, and Director of Research at Leeds School of Modern Languages since 2011. At Leeds since 1986, his interests cover contemporary French society, including post-Holocaust culture, and race and memory. •
Johanna Stiebert (born New Zealand), is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Leeds University. •
Geoffrey Wigoder (1922–99) born in Leeds, editor of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, professor, columnist and international broadcaster from Israel, writer on archaeology, and an advocate of Jewish-Christian dialogue.
Community historians •
James Appell (born Leeds 1984), now a New York sports journalist, he has written about the Jews of Leeds, Britain and Eastern Europe. •
Joseph Buckman (born Leeds 1926) wrote about the politics of the class struggle amongst the Jews of Leeds. •
Murray Freedman (1928–2011) A Leeds dentist, he became a chronicler of his community, publishing extensively, with an
MA at Leeds University. He was Leeds president of the
Jewish Historical Society. •
Ernest Krausz (1931–2018) was son of a Leeds Rabbi, who conducted a pioneering survey on the Jews of Leeds. He became an Israeli Professor of Sociology, and
Rector at
Bar Ilan University. •
Aubrey Newman (1927–2005) was a Leeds-based academic historian, whose work includes
Anglo-Jewry and the
Holocaust. • Louis Saipe (1896–1984) was a local Jewish historian in Leeds, and authored the play "They came to Leeds" around 1950. == References ==