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Sir Terence Etherton is not just the third Jew in succession to become the head of civil justice for England and Wales. He is the fifth Jewish Master of the Rolls out of the past six if you include Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, who is Jewish by descent though not by affiliation.
Sir Terence's Jewishness was obvious from the striking photograph republished by The Times last week to mark his promotion from head of the Chancery Division to the second most senior judge in England and Wales.
The picture showed him at West London Synagogue, where he has served as a warden, in tallit and kipah. He was photographed in 2014 when he married his former civil partner Andrew Stone, making Sir Terence the first Master of the Rolls to have a husband in the 730-year recorded history of the office.
Terry Etherton, as most people call him, is an energetic 64-year-old. After St Paul's and Cambridge he was selected for the British international fencing team and qualified for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. But, like many others, he boycotted the games in protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
