Name Edwin 2nd | Uncles Stuart Samuel | |
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Died November 14, 1978, Jerusalem, Israel Parents Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel Books A lifetime in Jerusalem Children David Samuel, 3rd Viscount Samuel, Dan Samuel, 4th Viscount Samuel | ||
Edwin Herbert Samuel, 2nd Viscount Samuel CMG (Hebrew: אדווין הרברט סמואל; 11 September 1898 – 14 November 1978), was the son of Beatrice Franklin and Herbert Samuel, and the father of Professor David Samuel and Dan Judah Samuel, 4th Viscount Samuel. He served in the Jewish Legion. He also served as the last Mandate-era Director of the Palestine Broadcasting Service.
He was educated at Westminster School and Balliol College, Oxford. In the spring of 1917 he joined the Royal Artillery and was posted to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. After the First World War he joined the Mandatory Government in Palestine.
As a Viscount, he served as a peer in the House of Lords. There, one of his significant acts was to have the law that forbade marriage between a woman and her brother-in-law repealed. His explicit intent was to allow a man to fulfill his responsibility under the biblical Judaic law of Levirate marriage. That Judaic Levirate law stated that when a woman's husband dies, it was the explicit responsibility of her brother-in-law to marry her and take care of her.