When Deborah Lipstadt (below) was invited to dinner some years ago, her host was worried it might land him in the soup – the chicken soup.

At a JW3 preview of the film Denial —  about her libel battle with Holocaust denier David Irving — the American academic revealed that during the course of the 2000 trial she was invited to Shabbat dinner by a friend who was married to Sir Hugh Laddie, a High Court judge.

Sir Hugh, a member of New London Synagogue, was concerned about any possible repercussions from a social rendezvous with the academic mid-trial, so he sought permission to go ahead with the Friday night invite from the then Lord Chief Justice, Harry Woolf. 

Fortunately for Professor Lipstadt, the high-level legal opinion was that the Friday night meal would present no conflict of interest.