Israel Sieff, Baron Sieff

Who was Israel Sieff, Baron Sieff?

Israel Moses Sieff, Baron Sieff was an English businessman and Zionist. He was born in Manchester, where his father, a migrant from Lithuania, founded a prosperous business.

Sieff was the son of Ephraim Sieff. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Manchester University. One of the theatres at Manchester Grammar School is named in his honour.

In 1918 Sieff was a member of the Zionist Commission which visited Palestine under the leadership of Chaim Weizmann.

Sieff was president of the Political and Economic Planning think-tank from its foundation in 1931 and its chairman until 1939. He was chairman of the British retailer Marks & Spencer from 1964 to 1967. In 1966 he was made a life peer as Baron Sieff, of Brimpton in the Royal County of Berkshire.

Upon the death of his son Daniel—and with the financial support of his business partners and relatives by marriage, the Marks and Sacher families—Sieff endowed the 1934 creation, by Chaim Weizmann, of the Daniel Sieff Research Institute in Rehovot in present-day Israel. Renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1949 with the Sieff family's consent, it is presently Israel's premier research university in the natural sciences.