✣ Peer who helped Christians flee ISIS dies aged 96
What happened? Lord Weidenfeld, who fled the Nazis as a refugee and in turn helped Christians escape ISIS, died last week. The 96-year-old founded the Weidenfeld & Nicolson publishing house in 1949. Its authors included Isaiah Berlin and Vladimir Nabokov. Later he published the memoirs of St John Paul II. Last year George Weidenfeld funded a scheme which aims to help thousands of Syrian Christians fleeing violence at the hands of ISIS. What the British media said In the Spectator literary editor Sam Leith recalled: “He published Lolita. He was drinking buddies with Pope John Paul II. And – I know he’d probably have regarded this as no big thing, but I was agog – he fought what he guessed was probably the last duel in Vienna before the Anschluss. “The duel involved George – all of about 5ft 7in – seeking out and deliberately insulting the biggest, most Aryan Nazi he could find,” Leith wrote. A duel was fought with swords, over 92 rounds, until a draw was declared. In the Daily Mail AN Wilson wrote of “a charming and ruthless networker who ... could persuade anyone to write for him”, adding: “He managed to secure a book from John Paul II ... he did as much as anyone to build bridges between Judaism and Catholicism”. What the religious media said Cardinal Vincent Nichols told the Catholic Herald that it was a “great privilege” to meet Lord Weidenfeld and to hear his gratitude for the Christian family who took him in before the Second World War. Lord Sacks, the former chief rabbi, told the Jewish Chronicle that Lord Weidenfeld was an “elemental force for good” who was “always thinking of new ways to fight prejudice, heal ancient wounds and bring peace to troubled regions of the world”. The Marquess of Reading, patron of the Barnabas Fund which helps persecuted Christians, said Lord Weidenfeld was a “dear and trusted friend to the Jewish and Christian communities and was instrumental in bringing them together ... to support the suffering Church in the Middle East”.
