Prominent U.S. Jewish Judges

Dalin, David G., (Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to Kagan [hc, Brandeis University Press, 2017]) 978-1611682380 [- examines the lives, legal careers, and legacies of the eight Jews who have served or who currently serve as justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: Louis D. Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter, Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Elena Kagan. David Dalin discusses the relationship that these Jewish justices have had with the presidents who appointed them, and given the judges’ Jewish background, investigates the antisemitism some of the justices encountered in their ascent within the legal profession before their appointment, as well as the role that antisemitism played in the attendant political debates and Senate confirmation battles. Other topics and themes include the changing role of Jews within the American legal profession and the views and judicial opinions of each of the justices on freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the death penalty, the right to privacy, gender equality, and the rights of criminal defendants, among other issues. – Amazon]

Urofsky, Melvin I., (Louis D. Brandeis: A Life [hc, Pantheon Books, 2009] 978-0375423666 [pb, Schocken, 2012] 978-0805211955 [As a young lawyer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Louis Brandeis, born into a family of reformers who came to the United States to escape European anti-Semitism, established the way modern law is practiced. He was an early champion of the right to privacy and pioneer the idea of pro bono work by attorneys. Brandeis invented savings bank life insurance in Massachusetts and was a driving force in the development of the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Reserve Act, and the law establishing the Federal Trade Commission.
 
Brandeis witnessed and suffered from the anti-Semitism rampant in the United States in the early twentieth century, and with the outbreak of World War I, became at age fifty-eight the head of the American Zionist movement. During the brutal six-month congressional confirmation battle that ensued when Woodrow Wilson nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1916, Brandeis was described as “a disturbing element in any gentlemen’s club.” But once on the Court, he became one of its most influential members, developing the modern jurisprudence of free speech and the doctrine of a constitutionally protected right to privacy and suggesting what became known as the doctrine of incorporation, by which the Bill of Rights came to apply to the states. – Amazon]

Kaufman, Andrew L., (Cardozo [hc, Harvard UP, 1998]) 978-0674096455 [pb, Harvard UP, 2000] 978-0674001923 [Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, unarguably one of the most outstanding judges of the twentieth century, is a man whose name remains prominent and whose contributions to the law remain relevant. This first complete biography of the longtime member and chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals and Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States during the turbulent years of the New Deal is a monumental achievement by a distinguished interpreter of constitutional law.

Cardozo was a progressive judge who understood and defended the proposition that judge-made law must be adapted to modern conditions. He also preached and practiced the doctrine that respect for precedent, history, and all branches of government limited what a judge could and should do. Thus, he did not modernize law at every opportunity.

In this book, Andrew Kaufman interweaves the personal and professional lives of this remarkable man to yield a multidimensional whole. Cardozo’s family ties to the Jewish community were a particularly significant factor in shaping his life, as was his father’s scandalous career―and ultimate disgrace―as a lawyer and judge. Kaufman concentrates, however, on Cardozo’s own distinguished career, including twenty-three years in private practice as a tough-minded and skillful lawyer and his classic lectures and writings on the judicial process. From this biography emerges an estimable figure holding to concepts of duty and responsibility, but a person not without frailties and prejudice. - Amazon]

Hirsch, H. N., (The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter [hc, Basic Books, 1981]) 9780465019793 [pb, Quid Pro, LLC, ] 978-1610272568 [Frankfurter was perhaps the most influential jurist of the 20th century—and one of the most complex men ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Mysteries and apparent contradictions abound. A vibrant and charming friend to many, why are his diaries so full of vitriol against judicial colleagues, especially Douglas and Black? An active Zionist, why did he so zealously enjoy the company of Boston Brahmins, whose snobbery he detested? Most puzzling of all: why did someone known before his appointment to the Court as a civil libertarian—even a radical—become the most famous and persistent advocate for austere judicial restraint? In answering these and other questions, this biography explores the personality of the man as a key to understanding the Justice. Hirsch sees in Frankfurter's fascinating and complex persona a clue to the biggest mystery of all: the contrast between the brilliant and ambitious young immigrant rising by his intellect and charm to leadership in U.S. academic and political life; and the judge, equally brilliant, but increasingly isolated, embittered, and ineffective. "Hirsch's well-written book ... dispels the contradictory image that has long mystified students of Felix Frankfurter. His portrait is unvarnished, yet scrupulously fair. Revealed is a consummate manipulator of public men and policy. No future biographer can safely ignore the brilliant biographical work." - Alpheus Thomas Mason, Princeton University. – Amazon]

Parrish, Michael E., (Felix Frankfurter and His Times: The Reform Years [hc, Free Press, 1982]) 978-0029237403 [Explores the years before Frankfurter's Supreme Court appointment and details such subjects as his tenure as a Harvard Law professor and his advisory relationship with Wilson and Roosevelt]

Stebenne, David L., (Arthur J. Goldberg: New Deal Liberal [hc, Oxford UP, 1996]) 978-0195071054 [This book is the first biography ever written of Goldberg, the former labor lawyer, Secretary of Labor under Kennedy, and Supreme Court justice (which post he resigned at the request of Lyndon Johnson to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations), who played a leading role in American political life from World War II until the end of the 1960s. Goldberg, who never wrote memoirs himself, shared his thoughts about his life and work with Stebenne in a series of conversations, which took place occasionally from the fall of 1981 through to Goldberg's death in 1990. He also allowed Stebenne access to his papers, including those held under seal in presidential libraries and at the Library of Congress. Based upon these unique sources and written to be accessible to a wide audience, Arthur J. Goldberg is both the story of a leading American liberal and a history of modern American liberalism. – Amazon]

Kalman, Laura, (Abe Fortas: A Biography [hc, Yale UP, 1990]) 978-0300046694 [pb, Yale UP, 1992] 978-0300052589 [Nominated by Johnson to be Chief Justice he was rejected by Congress and resigned from the Court early in the Nixon administration under a cloud of impending scandal. This first full biography of Fortas tells his dramatic story. Drawing on Fortas's previously unavailable personal papers on numerous archives and on extensive interviews with his family and associates, Laura Kalman illuminates his evolution from New Dealer to Washington lawyer to Great Society liberal and in so doing also provides a unique view of American liberalism from the 1930s through the 1960s. "There was no single Abe Fortas " writes Kalman. "There was a variety of personae and Fortas moved comfortably from one to another." Kalman describes Fortas's various personae: The boy who as "Fiddlin' Abe" played the violin in dance bands to earn spending money and who grew to consider chamber music the love of his life; The Jew who cared more about Israel than Judaism; The civil libertarian who worked for irascible Harold Ickes as Under Secretary of the Interior during the New Deal, who defended those charged with disloyalty by Joseph McCarthy, and who promoted social justice on the Court; The brilliant legal tactician who secured Lyndon Johnson's Senate seat in 1948 and whose successful defense of the Gideon case was described by William O. Douglas as "the best single argument" he heard in all his years on the Supreme Court; The Supreme Court justice who willingly risked compromising his judicial integrity to advise President Johnson; The man who hobnobbed with the powerful yet was powerless to combat the attacks against him when he was a Supreme Court justice and whose resignation from the Court contributed to the destruction of the liberal agenda for social reform. Reflecting on the various aspects of Fortas's enigmatic personality and the events of his life Kalman creates a new, authoritative portrait of the man. – Amazon]

De Hart, Jane Sherron, (Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life [hc, Alfred A. Knopf, 2018]) 978-1400040483 [pb, Vintage, 2020] 978-1984897831 [In this comprehensive, revelatory biography—fifteen years of interviews and research in the making—historian Jane Sherron De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg’s passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, and her meticulous jurisprudence. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs is her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to “repair the world,” with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II.

Ruth’s journey begins with her mother, who died tragically young but whose intellect inspired her daughter’s feminism. It stretches from Ruth’s days as a baton twirler at Brooklyn’s James Madison High School to Cornell University to Harvard and Columbia Law Schools; to becoming one of the first female law professors in the country and having to fight for equal pay and hide her second pregnancy to avoid losing her job; to becoming the director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and arguing momentous anti-sex discrimination cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

All this, even before being nominated in 1993 to become the second woman on the Court, where her crucial decisions and dissents are still making history. Intimately, personably told, this biography offers unprecedented insight into a pioneering life and legal career whose profound mark on American jurisprudence, American society, and our American character and spirit will reverberate deep into the twenty-first century and beyond. – Amazon]

Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, (My Own Words [hc, Simon & Schuster, 2016]) 978-1501145247 [pb, Simon & Schuster, 2018]) 978-1501145254 [ -  “showcases Ruth Ginsburg’s astonishing intellectual range” (The New Republic). In this collection Justice Ginsburg discusses gender equality, the workings of the Supreme Court, being Jewish, law and lawyers in opera, and the value of looking beyond US shores when interpreting the US Constitution. Throughout her life Justice Ginsburg has been (and continues to be) a prolific writer and public speaker. This book’s sampling was selected by Justice Ginsburg and her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, who introduce each chapter and provide biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews they have conducted. – Amazon]