LLOYD WEINREB

WEINREB--Lloyd L., passed away peacefully on December 15, 2021, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 85. Lloyd was a lawyer by training and professionally though his passion was books. He read widely and wrote plays and stories throughout his life. Recently Erma Elephant and the Really Big Hole, one of several children's stories that he wrote last summer, appeared in print as his first published literary work. At the age of forty he began studying classical Greek, tutored by graduate students and ultimately read the classics in the original texts that were essential to his thinking and scholarly writing. He loved to travel; with his young family he lived in Bogota for a year where he taught - in Spanish- at the University of Los Andes. He and his wife also lived in southern France where their children attended the local French schools. Lloyd enjoyed an active life, the outdoors, rebuilding rock walls at his home in New Hampshire; skiing, hiking and camping with his family in the White Mountains. He also loved opera and musical comedy; he could sing the lyrics to almost any show tune and he regaled friends recounting his appearance as a supernumerary in Il Trovatore when the Met came to Boston. He graduated high school on Long Island in Lawrence, NY; received a B.A. from Dartmouth College followed by two years at Oxford University and a B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics in 1959. He said that Oxford changed his life; it was where he became aware that he was an intellectual. In 1962 he earned an LL.B from Harvard Law School. Lloyd clerked for Justice John Marshall Harlan II of the U.S. Supreme Court and served on the Warren Commission. He taught at Harvard Law School from 1965 until he retired after nearly fifty years teaching Criminal Law, Political and Legal Philosophy, Jurisprudence and other subjects. He also taught courses to undergraduates in Harvard College and as visiting professor at Fordham Law School. His students enjoyed his wit. In response to a student's lament: "That's a real hard question," Lloyd replied, "I do my best." He was a modest man and a private person who relished exchanging ideas, running along the Charles River and playing squash with a few close friends and students. Among other books, he published Natural Law and Justice starting with the tradition in ancient Greece; and Oedipus at Fenway Park, on the concept of rights beginning with Greek mythology. He served as Chair of the Board of Directors of The Harvard University Press, as a Trustee of the Loeb Classical Library, and President of the Abbey Theatre Foundation of America. He is survived by Ruth Plaut Weinreb, his wife of fifty-eight years, their daughter Jenni Weinreb Owen and her husband Todd, their daughter Elizabeth Weinreb Fishman and her husband Ben, their son, Nicholas Daniel Weinreb, four grandchildren: Carter and Macey Owen; Sam and Teddy Fishman; Luc, his Labrador retriever; his brother, Elliot, and nieces and nephews. His brother Stephen Weinreb predeceased him. Born in Brooklyn, Lloyd is the son of Victor Weinreb from Brooklyn, and Ernestine (Lobell) Weinreb, born in Romania. A memorial service will be held at a later date in Cambridge. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made in Lloyd's honor to The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or to The Abbey Theatre Foundation.