Following in Lester’s footsteps

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Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC died in August 2020, aged 84. In March 2022, his family held a celebration of his life and work, which I reported shortly afterwards:

Remembering Anthony Lester

Joshua Rozenberg

March 7, 2022

Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC died of heart disease in August 2020, aged 84. Eighteen months later, his family were at last able to celebrate his life at an evening of words and music in Lincoln’s Inn last week. It was an entirely secular memorial: Anthony Lester claimed to be a “Jewish atheist with only a rudimentary knowledge of Jewish law, faith or observance”. But, as his son Gideon writes, “his Jewishness and the deeply rooted, only sometimes dormant, antisemitism of Britain became twin poles of his identity”.

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As a young lawyer, Lester visited the American South twice during the civil rights era and wrote a report on race relations. His experiences there persuaded him that the practice of law could b…

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