Greville Janner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
The Lord Janner of Braunstone
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Janner in 2009
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| Member of the House of Lords | |
| Life peerage 25 October 1997 – 19 December 2015 |
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| Member of Parliament for Leicester West Leicester North West (1970–1974) |
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| In office 18 June 1970 – 8 April 1997 |
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| Preceded by | Barnett Janner |
| Succeeded by | Patricia Hewitt |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Greville Ewan Janner
11 July 1928 Cardiff, Wales |
| Died | 19 December 2015 (aged 87) London, England |
| Resting place | Willesden Jewish Cemetery |
| Political party | Labour (suspended April 2015) |
| Spouse |
Myra Sheink
(m. 1955; died 1996) |
| Children | 3, including Daniel and Laura |
| Education | St Paul's School, London |
| Alma mater | Trinity Hall, Cambridge Harvard Law School |
| Profession | Barrister |
Greville Ewan Janner, Baron Janner of Braunstone, QC (11 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was a British politician, barrister and writer. He became a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester in the 1970 general election as a last-minute candidate, succeeding his father. He was an MP until 1997, and then elevated to the House of Lords. Never a frontbencher, Janner was particularly known for his work on Select Committees; he chaired the Select Committee on Employment for a time. He was associated with a number of Jewish organisations including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, of which he was chairman from 1978 to 1984, and was later prominent in the field of education about the Holocaust.
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Early life
Janner was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) parents, the son of Barnett Janner and Elsie Sybil, née Cohen. Janner and Ruth, his sister (later Lady Morris of Kenwood), were evacuated to Canada at the age of 11, because their parents anticipated a Nazi invasion of Britain. While in Canada, living with family friends, he attended Bishop's College School, Lennoxville, Quebec. Janner returned to Britain in 1942 and attended St Paul's School, London.
At the age of 18, he served in occupied Germany working for the War Crimes Investigation Unit of the British Army of the Rhine for 18 months. Janner investigated cases of British airmen who were killed at Stalag Luft III, the prisoner of war camp. At weekends, he worked with Holocaust survivors at Bergen-Belsen. The army unit was closed in 1948 to Janner's dismay.
Later, Janner read Law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society, in 1952, and chairman of the university Labour Club. He became the international secretary of the National Association of Labour Students and president of Trinity Hall Athletic Club. Janner was able to attend Harvard Law School through both the Fulbright and Smith-Mundt Act awards.
After training, via a Harmsworth Scholarship at Middle Temple, he became a barrister in 1954 and was appointed a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1971.
Public career
House of Commons and Jewish causes
Having unsuccessfully fought Wimbledon in the 1955 General Election, Janner represented Leicester North West from the 1970 general election until February 1974, succeeding his father, Sir Barnett Janner, a former Chairman of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain. His father announced his retirement from the Commons two days before candidate nominations closed in 1970, and his son was quickly chosen in his place. Posters imploring electors to "Vote Janner" had already been printed, and thus did not need to be scrapped.
The younger Janner retained the reformed Leicester West from 1974 until his retirement at the 1997 general election. Janner chaired the Select Committee on Employment from 1994 to 1996. He lost this position because Conservative members of the committee acted against him. A potential conflict of interest existed as he was an advisor to firms the committee might investigate. He was succeeded in Leicester West by Patricia Hewitt.
Janner was president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the main representative body of the British Jewish community, from 1978 to 1984, and was a prominent campaigner in the efforts to gain reparations for victims of the Holocaust. In parliament, and outside, he was involved in campaigning for the War Crimes Act 1991, lobbying the Thatcher government to allow legislation to bring those responsible for Nazi atrocities (and now resident in Britain) to justice. He was also a vice-president of the World Jewish Congress until 2009 and of the Jewish Leadership Council until 2015. He was president of the National Council for Soviet Jewry (1979–85) and the Commonwealth Jewish Council.
In 1988 he co-founded the Holocaust Educational Trust with Merlyn Rees, a body which successfully persuaded the British government to add teaching about the Holocaust to the National Curriculum in 1988. Janner stood down from the role in 2012. The Lord Janner Scholarship provides funding for ten schools to take part in the Trust's educational programmes each year.
Janner sought to foster good relations between different faiths and religions and wrote about this issue in his book One Hand Alone Cannot Clap. He co-founded (along with Prince Hassan of Jordan) the Coexistence Trust, a charity to combat Islamophobia and antisemitism.
House of Lords
Janner was created a life peer as Baron Janner of Braunstone, of Leicester in the County of Leicestershire in 1997. He was President and an Officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Anti-Semitism. Janner was associated with the Labour Friends of Israel and in 2002 backed Stephen Byers to be chairman.
In 2006, Janner was struck by Lord Bramall, a former head of the Armed Forces, during a heated row over the Middle East. In the incident, which occurred during the 2006 Lebanon War, the two men had disagreed in the House of Lords chamber after Bramall had made comments Janner considered too critical of Israel. Janner was hit in one of the rooms close to the chamber. Janner later sought the advice of fellow peers about how and whether to make a formal complaint against Lord Bramall, before deciding to accept an apology.
Janner continued to attend the House of Lords until December 2013. He was on leave of absence from the House of Lords from 13 October 2014.
Other
Janner wrote a number of books on public speaking and business communication, including On Presentation. In addition, he wrote extensively under the pen-name Ewan Mitchell. He was a former member of The Magic Circle and the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
Personal life
In 1955, Janner married Myra Louise Sheink, who was originally from Australia and the niece of Sir Israel Brodie, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. The couple had three children: two daughters and a son. Myra Sheink died in 1996.
Lord Janner's younger daughter is Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, who was appointed Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism in 2011. She is married to a brother of the Israeli writer Amos Oz. Marion Janner, his other daughter, was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to mental health in 2010. Daniel Janner, his son, is a barrister and KC.
Illness and death
In 2009, Janner was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Its advancing severity meant that by 2015 he required round-the-clock care for his dementia. At a court hearing in August 2015, a medical specialist acting as a witness for the defence said that Janner was experiencing the early stages of Parkinson's disease. Janner died on 19 December 2015 from complications of Alzheimer's disease, aged 87.
Books
The books up to 1968 are listed in Who's Who 1974, London: A. & C. Black, 1974, p. 1708
- (1962) Farming and the Law, Business Books
- (1962) The Lawyer and his World, Business Books
- (1962) The Businessman's Lawyer and Legal Lexicon
- (1963) The Retailer's Lawyer, Business Books
- (1963) All You Need To Know about the Law, Business Books
- (1964) Motorists : Know Your Law, Business Books
- (1964) You and the Law, Business Books
- (1964) The Personnel Manager's Lawyer and Employer's Guide to the Law, Business Books
- (1965) Your Factory and the Law, Business Books
- (1966) The Sales Executive's Lawyer, Business Books
- (1966) Your Property and the Law, Business Books
- (1968) The Director's Lawyer, Business Books
- (1978) The Motorist's Lawyer, Royal Automobile Club
- (1979) Product Liability, Random House Business Books
- (1985) Janner's Complete Letterwriter
- (1986) On Meetings, Gower Publishing
- (1989) On Chairing, Gower Publishing
- (1989) On Presentation, Random House Business Books
- (1991) How to Win Meetings, Gower Publishing
- (1998) One Hand Alone Cannot Clap: Arab Israeli Universe, Robson Books
- (2003) Janner's Speechmaker, Thorogood
- (2003) To Life! The Memoirs of Greville Janner, Sutton Publishing (foreword by Tony Blair)
- (2008) Jewish Parliamentarians (with Derek Taylor)
Arms
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See also
- List of Bishop's College School alumni
