On December 23 2010, Ernest Lloyd went to be with the Lord. He was 98 years old.
By any standard his life was remarkable. At the age of five, Ernest was abandoned to the care of the Naomi Home for Women and Children, run by the Barbican Mission to the Jews. He never knew his father and the only recollection he had of his mother was that of a tall, dark, Italian Sephardi Jewess from whom he inherited his height, black hair and striking looks. Life was particularly hard for Jews during WWI. A timid and melancholic child, Ernest was an object of hatred, called a ‘Christ killer’ and like many other Jewish children, suffered frequent taunts and even stoning.
Conversion
In his late teens, following an intense intellectual and spiritual conflict, Ernest became convinced that Jesus was the Messiah foretold by the Hebrew prophets and, in 1933, commenced his life’s work with the British Society for the Propogation of the Gospel among the Jews, now Christian Witness to Israel.
