Leon Simon (Zionist)

Sir Leon Simon
Sir Leon Simon in 1944 from the National Portrait Gallery
Born	(1881-07-11)July 11, 1881 Southampton, United Kingdom
Died	April 27, 1965(1965-04-27) (aged 83) London, United Kingdom
Citizenship	British, Israeli
Alma mater	Balliol College, University of Oxford
Occupation	Civil Servant
Years active	1904 - 1949
Known for	Cultural Zionist, writer, Hebrew scholar, political activist
Spouse(s)	Ellen Simon (m. 1916–65)

Sir Leon Simon CB (born 1881 in Southampton; died 1965 in London) was a leading British Zionist intellectual and civil servant who took part in the drafting of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and served on the Zionist Commission with Chaim Weizmann. An advocate of cultural Zionism and the reviver of Hebrew language, Simon was a scholar and translator of Ahad Ha'am, and produced the first modern Hebrew translations of Plato. He served as the Chairman of the Hebrew University’s Executive Council

Simon was the son of Rabbi Isadore Simon of the South Manchester Synagogue and Kitty Avner, both of whom had moved to Britain in the late 19th century from Lithuania. He studied at Manchester Grammar School and read Greats at Balliol College at the University of Oxford.

In Manchester he became a core part of a group of young anglicised Jewish intellectuals that congregated around Chaim Weizmann. The group included the journalist Harry Sacher, Samuel Landman, Israel Sieff and Simon Marks of Marks & Spencer. All of them had studied at Manchester Grammar School.

The group were members of the Manchester Zionist Association, where Simon and his brother Maurice Simon would hold discussions in Hebrew.Charles Dreyfus, Weizmann's employer in Manchester, was the President of the Society.