In his role as a Circuit Judge and a Deputy High Court Judge, Sir Clive Callman, who has died aged 92, was ahead of his time. He put the child’s needs at the heart of every divorce case he heard, and even years later he received Christmas cards and letters of thanks from the children involved.
Sir Clive was passionate about educational opportunity, especially for those whose families could not support them financially. He became a Senator of London University and a Governor of Birkbeck College London and the London School of Economics. He offered decades of public and discreet voluntary service – to both institutions and individuals who sought his help.
Keenly interested in the Middle East, he was committed to combatting discrimination and political hatred, and strongly advcocated religious tolerance. He wanted to help young people of all faiths. As Governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1992 until his death, he helped set up research funds in family law, and criminal law and he supported pioneering medical and scientific discoveries which could improve people’s lives around the world. 
Sir Clive served on the Board of Deputies, the Council of West London Synagogue and was Patron of the Friends of Progressive Judaism in Israel and Europe. He supported the establishment of Kehilat Kol HaNeshama, a Reform synagogue in Jerusalem. 
He arrived in England from Berlin as an 11 year old Jewish refugee, accompanied by his parents, Felix, a dental surgeon and Edith née Suessmann and his sister. He asked to be put up a year at his school, St George’s College, Weybridge, Surrey, enabling him to leave early and work to support his parents. 
At the London School of Economics he read economics and law, working at night to finance his studies. As an immigrant seeking pupillage to become a barrister, Sir Clive understood the intellectual grip and personal resilience required to navigate the British legal system, without money or contacts. His forensic intellect and hard work brought him success.Through his involvement in advocacy training and student advisory work, Sir Clive encouraged the next generation of young lawyers, informally mentoring many. His door was always open to those in need. In retirement, Sir Clive went back to school himself, qualifying as a mediator. He worked on complex international cases well into his 80s. 
Anchoring his intense professional life, was the love of his life and wife of more than 50 years, Judy (née Hines), a medical social worker, a Governor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem and Chair of the National Gamete Donation Trust. Their two children Jeremy and Tanya are both barristers. 
Sir Clive never forgot his roots, the circumstances of his arrival in Britain and those – from Quakers to Catholics – who had helped his family set up their new life in Britain. His refugee experience and efforts to obtain further education informed his political views.
 Sir Clive adored news, politics, economics, history and Israel. He treasured what he felt to be a ‘golden thread of Judaism’, passed down from his great-grandparents and beyond him to his children and grandchildren. Many of them celebrated their bar or batmizvah by reading from the family Sefer Torah, rescued from the burning Prinzregegentenstrasse Synagogue in Berlin on Kristallnacht. It miraculously survived, hidden in a storeroom throughout the war, before being rediscovered by a rabbi and reunited with the surviving family. 
Sir Clive Callman was knighted in 2012 for services to law, education and charity. Even with the onset of dementia he emphasised how much he wanted to live. He wrote: “It is the memory that we leave in the hearts of those we loved that is the only true and lasting memorial.”He is survived by his children Jeremy and Tanya, grandchildren Ben, Nura, Tammy, Sam, Ariella and Joe. Judy predeceased him in 2017,
RACHEL ELLISON

Sir Clive Callman: born June 21,1927. Died September 19,2019