British solicitor advocate and academic (born 1956)
Anthony Robert Julius (born 16 July 1956) is a British solicitor advocate known for being Diana, Princess of Wales' divorce lawyer[1] and for representing Deborah Lipstadt.[2] He is the deputy chairman at the law firm Mishcon de Reya[1] and honorary solicitor to Foundation for Jewish Heritage. He is a trustee for the Institute of Jewish Studies.
He holds the chair in Law and Arts in the Faculty of Laws at University College London[3] and teaches courses on Shakespeare, Kant, and William Empson. He is also a visiting professor to the Haifa university.[4]
He was selected by Diana, Princess of Wales, as her legal representative when she divorced Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1996. He was vice-president of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, until it closed in 2012. He was one of the charity's founding trustees and its first chairman until 1999.[7]
Julius is legal advisor to the Foundation of Jewish Heritage.[10]
Julius is an advisory editor at the current affairs journal Fathom.[11] He was a founding member of both Engage and the Euston Manifesto. From 2011 to 2014 he was chairman of the board of The Jewish Chronicle.[12]
He serves as trustee to English PEN, the founding centre of a worldwide writers' association.[13] Julius is also chairman of the trustees of Phenomen Trust.
Between 2007 and 2013, Julius played an active role in the campaign against the academic boycott of Israeli universities. In a Guardian article co-authored with historian Simon Schama, Julius wrote "This is not the first boycott call directed at Jews. On 1 April 1933, a week after he came to power, Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish shops, banks, offices and department stores."[14]
Julius's other activities in this context included representing Ronnie Fraser in an action against the University and College Union (UCU). Fraser, who was a member of the union, complained that it had created an "intimidating", "hostile", "humiliating", and "offensive" environment for Jews.[15] After a 20-day hearing the tribunal rejected his claim, harshly rebuking Julius for "misusing the legal process". Scorn is also invoked for Julius's decision to pursue certain points, with complaints variously dismissed as "palpably groundless", "obviously hopeless" and "devoid of any merit".[16][1] The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), which critics have described as an ‘extreme Israel advocacy group’,[17] criticized the rejection.[18][19]
Private life
He married Judith Bernie in 1979; the couple had four children, but later divorced. In 1999, he married Dina Rabinovitch and had one child with her. Rabinovitch died in 2007 from breast cancer. In 2009, he married Katarina Lester, and is step-father to her two children. They had a son together in 2011.[20]
Bentham and the Arts – co-editor, and contributor ("More Bentham, Less Mill")
Whither liberal Zionism?
The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century: From the Academic Boycott Campaign into the Mainstream Contributor - (Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism)
"Abraham: The First Jew" – a volume in the Yale Jewish Lives Series, to be published in Winter 2024; (3) Shameless Authors – a study of censorship of the arts - to be published by OUP in 2026.
^Schama, Simon (22 December 2006). "John Berger is wrong". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
^Levick 2013: Fraser had charged the UCU with fostering an atmosphere of antisemitism which created an ‘intimidating’, ‘hostile’, ‘humiliating’, and ‘offensive’ work environment’ for Jews