tonight in prime time we'll take a look at brown versus board of education of topeka, kansas. what struck down as inherently unequal and unconstitutional based on the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. join us at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on cspan3 and streaming ton free cspan radio app. next we'll continue tour focus on the supreme court with david dalin who talks about those who served on the nation's highest court. this is about an hour and a half. >> upstairs the original constitution of the of united states signed by the delegates to the constitutional convention in 1787 was on display. every day thousands of people come to view it. many of them bend down to

examine the parchment and some trying to read the 18th century script. the constitution is the foundation of our government and is the standard to which is supreme court of the united states looks when it decides the cases that come before it. the many supreme court case files are preserved here at the national archives. as our opinions docket books and the earliest records starting in 1790. we also have the audio recordings and the majority have been digitized and available online. you're working on a project for all of these digital recordings and we hope to have them available by december of this year. since its founding in 1934 they have also hosted supreme court justices in person as well as in its records. some of the justices have had close connections with this

agency. in the 1950s he served on the board of records commission followed by justice brenden. arthur goldberg served. in 2012 they launched a series of conversations and the supreme court justices of the united states jail law pro fesser leaders this discussion and the impocket on the american people. those are available. now let's get to tonight's program so we can learn more about the supreme court justices.

please welcome of greater washington. [ applause [ applause ] >> thank you. good evening everyone and welcome. i am delighted on behalf of the jewish historical society to thank the national archives especially susan who partnered with us for this annual program to commemorate. we also want to thank a supreme court historical society and its staff for joining us in tonight's program. a special thank you to a long time friend who first suggested they come to us as a speaker and help us connect with both dr. dalin, what a pair for tonight. i want to welcome frank gilbert, a past president of the jewish

historical society. thanks to his generosity the society is fortunate enough to have justice's law school notebook and a beautiful oil portrait. as many of you may know the jewish historical society is planning a new jewish museum in washington as part of the capital crossing development project which is a few blocks from here. last november our historic 1876 synagogue was cut from its base and moved 50 feet into the middle of third street northwest where it will remain in the the third and final move and it will become the centerpiece of the museum complex.

tonight's topic of jewish supreme court justices is one we plan to make a key element in the exhibition and programming. i have the honor to have joining history, current i vents and promise of the future to fell one of the many stories. dr. david dalin is a author, co-author or editor of 11 books including religion and state. his articles and book reviews have appeared in a variety of publicatio publications. tonight he will talk about his book which many of you have in your hands, jewish justices of

the supreme court which has already received excellent reviews since is release in april. in this first history who have served or currently served on the u.s. supreme court he examines their lives and legal careers as well as the changing role of jews within the american legal profession. he will be joined in conversation with seth who is himself a distinguished leader in the washington and national legal communities. he taught as a visiting fellow from school of government and as a visiting processer at the georgetown university law center.

he has argued 33 cases before the supreme court and has tried and argued dozens of other high profile complex civil and criminal cases in federal and state courts across the country. so now i'm sure you're ready and i am too to invite him to the stage. >> so good to be here. [ applause ] good evening. i'm seth, the guest of honor. we couldn't hear any of the introduction. we were held in a secure

location. assuming i can keep track of time open it up for audience questions. people are here because they are interested. they have particular questions and we have a great font of knowledge. i'm told if you have a question you should go to the aisles to the microphone but i have to say i don't see any mike mooi cr microphones. okay. they will magically appear. as you're thinking of questions once i open it up in case i forget to tell you please make your way to the mic because this program is being broadcast in addition to the fact that either

one or us won't be able to hear you and your fellow attend dees won't be able to hear and people in the television audience want to be able to hear also. and in case the previous speakers have not told you this there is a book signing and the author himself will be available to answer questions and sign books. so welcome. so we met yesterday and we immediately agreed on the convention we would refer to each other by our first names. so david, let me ask you to tell us about yourself and your own sort of professional your nic. t how did you get to -- you know, what's your story before picking up the pen to write this book?

>> that's a great question. i'm honored to have you for this conversation. most of my work is as a american his to y'all. i coauthored a book and i have written major articles about the presidentab presidential appointment process and the relationship of this to the jewish community. through that i became tremendously interested with the whole subject to the supreme court and their relationship also to the presidents who appointed them and also to their

legal careers as well and many years ago i became fascinated and i attended and did my daughter and i began reading biographies and it lead me to judicial biographies. i gravitated more and more i thought it would be interesting. it goes through the 2016 election. so this is what i said before. it is not only the first history of the jewish justices who have served in the past or currently served on the supreme court but

also a collective biography of the jewish men and women who have served on the court. it has been an interest for many many years and i finally decided it was a choice between two things. i have also written about jews and baseball which could be a future book. i finally decided on the jewish justice instead. >> that's the deal. >> those are two areas i haven't even thought about and probably the jews will be a relatively small chapter. >> without doing the research i'm sure you appreciate there may be a lot of surprises. >> right here. in fact, god willing, if this book comes i will come to the

national archives. i know a little bit about jews and baseball and a little bit about jewish and basketball but very little about this is great. >> so i have to say in talking to people about the event and people asking about the event, one question that i get that i've gotten more frequently than i guess i would have anticipated, and this may be a generational thing because it is mainly from colleagues and professional friends who are significantly younger than i am, just so that everybody puts this in context, i'm 65. so you can be significantly younger than i am and still have had a successful career in the law. but one recurring question i've gotten even from people in my

generation is there a reason to think about a group of justices as jewish justices. and the answer obviously in your mind is yes. so why don't you start by answering all those questions i've gotten? like why write about jewish justices? is that a big deal? >> it is. i'll tell you why. before justice grandice was appointed in january 1960, before that appointment, it was unimaginable you would have a jewish justice on the court. i want to come back to the question in a minute about anti-semitism, the rise and decline of anti-semitism in the legal profession. but so many things were different then. it really would have truly been imaginable in grandice's day not one, not two, but three jewish justices on the supreme court simultaneously.

from 2010 when elena kagen succeeded john paul stevens, who was the last protestant to the appointment now of neil gorsuch, an episcopalian, this kind of thing would have been unimaginable. in two decades that grandice was on the court, you have the emergence of an african-american seat on the court. and now there are three women on the court. and i think there will continue to be at least one or two women on the court. this brings, if i can, the whole question of how this came about and anti-semitism within the legal profession. and is it okay to address this as --

>> i'm going to ask you you decide whether to address it now. it certainly is something i want you to talk about. i was thinking about for those two or three people in the country who can't rattle off automatically who these sometimes mysterious eight justices are, maybe it would help just by having you identify who they were, who they were nominated by, when they served and just a couple of sentences. i'm going to, time permitting, ask you question about each of them. >> sure. >> and what their legacy is. i guess we may have to continue this discussion until tomorrow afternoon. >> oh. >> but why don't you start off by saying -- okay. we know louis brandeis was the

first one. the rise and fall of or asevve aseven -- ascendancy and decline of -- >> brandeis -- it became a major issue of controversy in the wilson administration. he was facing a tough reelection battle on the following november against charles evans hughes, the former governor of new york. by the way, charles evans hughes went to sleep the night of the november 1916 election thinking he had won the election.

and wilson assuming he had lost. they both woke up to the change in realities. the brandeis battle went on for four months. it was the most contentious battle until the battle of robert gork in 1987. much of the controversy had to do with -- brandeis was considered one of the leading progressive performers. he had been woodrow wilsons make economic advisor. wilson ran for election in 1912. wilson had hoped to appoint him attorney general. but the avalanche of anti-semitic opposition stalled that. wilson remained committed to appointing him. when he nominated him, he persevered and stood by him.

la most of the opposition was anti-semitic in nature. but it was -- wilson had one very long by the way that president obama did not have when he nominated garland last year. merrick garland would have been the ninth jewish justice on the court. wilson had a democratic senate and there were several progressive republicans who crossed party lines to support brandeis. >> he served 23 years until

1939. he succeeded -- first of all, benjamin car doudoza was not on lifelong democrat but supported smith in the 1928 presidential election. so hoover transsend setranscend allegiance. most historians and biographers -- hoover didn't have the greatest presidency in american history and his appointment of cardoza is considered one of his truly great achievements of president.

cardoza dies. he had been ill when he came to washington. after six years in the court in 1938 -- >> we're going to come back to this. for a brief period of time cardoza in an era of anti-semitism, cardoza and brandeis served on the supreme court together. >> simultaneously for six years. mcreynolds, a vicious anti-semitic justice, has been outraged when brandeis was nominated. he would not permit himself to be photographed near brandeis. when hoover had the audacity to appoint another jew, he

personally wrote to hoover pleading with him not to go with another hebrew. when brandeis retired in 1939, there's a tradition that members of the court all sign like a retirement letter, which is framed for the retiring justice. mcreynolds refused to do so. for six years there were two jews on the court. in 1939 when cardoza retired -- actually he passed away. right after his retirement, fdr appointed his old friend and advisor felix frankfurt. he served on the court for two weeks with brandeis before he retired. frankfurter and fdr met at a

lunch at new york's harvard club. >> who's next? >> next is -- >> frank fuffurter passes away. >> he retired in 1962, passes away in 1965. all of the jewish justices were liberal justices by any definition.

frankfurter had been a flaming liber liberal, but he became more and more conservative in his 23 years on the court. and when he resigned in 1962, he was the most conservative member of the court. and he became a prophet or advocate of judicial restraint. anyway, john f kennedy had -- he was probably the best known labor lawyer in the country. president kennedy appointed him secretary of labor. and he served the shortest tenure, less than three years on the court. >> we're going to come back for

sure. >> lbj persuaded him to leave a lifetime position. he lived until 1991. to accept a position of ambassador of the united nations. he had a falling out with lbj and he was out of the u.n. in two and a half years. >> he's out and who's in? >> lbj's closest political advisor for many years. >> are we going to talk about landslide lyndon? >> landslide lyndon. this is a great story. 1948 fortis and lyndon johnson had net. fo fortis was a new deal lawyer. she worked at the new deal and got to know a young congressman

from texas, lyndon johnson. 1948, in the fight of his lifetime, johnson gave up a safe congressional seat to run for the senate from texas. had he lost that race, we never would have heard of lyndon johnson. in my book i document the fact, well, there's a good argument that he did lose that race. that you'll have to read the book. now, it was such a close race it was sent to a blue ribbon committee of washington attorneys to investigate -- there was a great deal of voter fraud. the person who chaired this argued the case at the supreme court in favor of lyndon johnson was the young up and coming

attorney by the name of fortis. johnson never got this. throughout his years as majority leader of the senate, his vice president was his closest advisor. he and his wife socialized with fortis and his wife. he always wanted to promote him to reciprocate.

>> he invites him to the rose garden. on the way over there, much to fortis's anger and surprise, he tells him that he's announcing his nomination for the supreme court. by the way, arthur goldberg had not yet officially accepted his invitation to the u.n. and basically he had to take a 90% salary cut. in the '50s he and his wife who were partners in the major law firm drove twin rolls royces. they had a combined income in the '50s of $400,000. his wife was a piece of work, had 150 pairs of shoes in one

closet. >> this is all really interesting, but unless i'm wrong, abe fortis didn't serve very long in the supreme court. we seem to be stuck on the fifth. i have a whole like book of questions to ask you. >> tomorrow afternoon i've got a flight to catch. so anyway we'll talk about afterwards in what became the biggest scandal of the jewish justice. abe fortis resigned the court in 1969. he served a few months longer than arthur goldberg. in that case richard nixon appointed howie blackman to the court. now, it would take 24 years before another jew would be appointed to the court.

in the interim i'm trying to think who reagan nominated. >> many people. >> many people. but another ginsberg, douglas ginsberg who had to withdraw his candidacy when it was revealed that he had smoked marijuana not only while a law student but also while a law professor at harvard. >> shocking no one but the political establishment. >> in 1994, bill clinton appoints ruth bader ginsburg to the court. these were the only supreme court appointments that bill clinton had. he appointed two jews. ruth bader ginsburg -- they did

not confront any anti-semitism either in their legal careers. their religion was almost not mentioned in the hearings at all, the confirmation hearings. ruth bader ginsburg did face a lot of obstacles on being a woman in a legal profession that was still predominantly male. when she entered harvard law school in 1956, she was only one of nine students in a class of over 500. she became the first -- the second woman after sandra day o'connor and the first jewish woman on the court. now a year later steven briar who i'm proud to say is from san francisco.

technically he didn't live in san francisco. and he is appointed and both of them still serve on the court today. they're considered pretty much part of the liberal bloc on the court. and ruth bader ginsburg has now surpassed brandeis and frankfurter in terms of longevity on the supreme court. steven briar had a very interesting -- he served in the 1980s as the chief counsel of the senate judiciary committee. both he and ruth bader ginsburg were known as voices for conviviality on the court. he got along with everyone. as counsel for the judiciary committee, he was able to get along famously with the late ted

kennedy and orin hatch on the other. they agreed on their admiration and respect for steve. when he was nominated in the last days of jimmy carter's administration to the federal bench, they came together to n finesse his nomination. anyone who can get along with orin hatch and ted kennedy must be going something right.

ele elena kagan started out working for the clinton administration. she became the first woman and jewish woman dean of harvard law school. >> i guess if she was the first woman dean, she would also qualify for the first jewish woman. >> she followed in the great steps of -- she became the next jewish solicitor general in 2009 and the first woman solicitor general. later president obama appointed her to the supreme court. by the way, one of the efforts of presidents when they appoint justices is to appoint hopefully younger justices who with good health may serve 40 years. she was the exact same age, 49

going on 50 as neil gorsuch was. >> that's the golden era to get nominated. >> that's right. but now i think i've exhausted the litany except of course if we have time about merrick garland who did not quite make it to the court. >> we're talking about legacies and history here. i think you'll agree as an historian that it is perhaps a little premature to talk about the legacies of the sitting justices. while i do have some questions for you about the sitting justices, they are in the process of writing their own legacies. i'm going to focus a lot in my remaining 20 minutes before opening it up to the audience -- i guess that gives me about 17 minutes to get to my concluding remarks. i want to ask you some things about some of these justices in particular and have you share with the audience some of your learning about them.

i need to have you -- when we talk about these people as jewish justices, we are using the convention here that they were born to jewish mothers, correct? >> that's all correct. >> to what extent are we talking about people for whom jewish observance, jewish spirituality and jewish belief was a significant -- appears to you to be a significant aspect of their lives up until the time they were serving on the court and while they were serving on the court. they're jewish because they had a jewish mother. a lot of people want to know to what extent their jewish faith and believes may or may not have affected or influenced who they were as people and how they performed as judges.

>> with the singular exceptions of justice kcardoza and justice goldberg who was very active in the jewish community and had an annual passover party that was the talk of washington. a perennial guest was george meany. >> rob george meany. >> who regaled their audience with irish songs. and by the way goldberg's wife dorothy regaled with yiddish songs. your question is well taken. most of the jewish justices were not really practicing religious

jews. starting with brandeis, he came from a family -- he grew up in louisville, kentucky. his parents were german speaking jews from prague. his mother was said to admire the ethics of all religions and the rituals and observances of none. in their home they never celebrated the jewish sabbath or han ukkah but christmas. brandeis continued in this tradition. >> we don't want to give away the whole book. >> i'll tell you one of them. okay. brandeis was a prolific letter writer. 1900, his two young daughters were on vacation in the days

before christmas in new york to see relatives. brandeis wrote a letter to them saying, please don't worry. the christmas tree is set up and santa claus will be here to greet you. the other thing which i find fascinating is he was very close to his brother alford in louisville. every month to six weeks his cousin alfred would send them a ham from louisville. my question was, there were no hams in boston? there would be these wonderful notes from brandeis saying thank you, the brandeis household is over joyed here. we just received your ham today, et cetera. >> i want to come back after we get done with the yiddish kite of all of the justices or at least the non-sitting justices. i want to get back to zionism. there's a very interesting story

here. c cardozo a direct descendent of the only rabbi officiating at george washington's giving an invocation at his inauguration in 1790. he had been the first jew ever appointed to the board of governors of columbia university at the recommendation of alexander hamilton. one of his cousins was the deputy mayor of new york.

>> we know about his -- but what about his believes, his practices? >> he too -- he belonged to what's called the spanish portuguese synagogue in new york. it's the oldest continuing synagogue in the united states. he belonged and when he was in new york he occasionally went on the high holidays. there was a seat in his honor. he very rarely attended services there.

he was barmi on his first invitation to the brandeis home when he came to washington that's what brandeis served. >> fair to say it didn't auger well for a close relationship between the two on the court. >> i think that's an understatement, on the court or off the court. but he remained always affiliated -- when he died, the memorial service was at the spanish portuguese. he remained a nonpracticing orthodox jew. if and when he went to a synagogue, it had to be an orthodox siynagogusynagogue. when cardozo died, he died at

the lehman's mansion. they were so shocked when they went -- they had the funeral at s sharif israel. the leaders would not permit him to officiate in any way. that shocked lehman who was a very committed reform jew. even his close friends didn't realize how orthodox a jew he really was or was not because he never practiced his orthodox judaism. >> felix frankfurter, born in the old country, comes to the united states at age 12 not knowing one word of english. >> correct.

>> goes to a yeshiva. >> for a while. >> in bed-stuy because they thought it was the safest school for him. then what happened? >> at the age of 15, he decides judaism is not for him. he becomes a self-proclaimed agnost agnostic. he goes to city college and then harvard law school where he's at the top of his class. i have photographs of him in his harvard law school dorm in the book. he wanted very much to become part of the protestant elite. he married the daughter of a protestant minister. he never attended synagogue except to give an occasional lecture. in his will to the surprise and shock of his protestant wife and most of his friends, he asked that the traditional jewish prayer of mourning be recited at

his funeral. >> by? >> he specified by louis henkin. he was the son of one of the preeminent orthodox rabbis in the country and a preeminent legal scholar who for 40 years was a law professor at columbia university. i think one of the great authorities on sbraninternation law. he has been a consultant to the state department. >> so frankfurter, very jewish until 15, casts it all off, becomes jewish again at his funeral. >> and he says to another friend shortly before his death, he says, well, you know i was born

jewish. most of my life i did not live as a jew but i want to die as a jew. >> so much for jewish influence during his 23 years on the court. okay. we're up to justice goldberg, who did belong to a synagogue his whole life. >> yes. >> what else? >> he was an early zionist. he and his wife were close friends of golda maier. he grew up in chicago, was first in his class at northwestern university. couldn't get a job in one of the big law firms but got a job in what was then a small jewish law firm founded by the two pritzger

brothers. >> can we get back to the spirituality? >> yes, yes. i'm going to take my watch out to remind me. he was a much more jewish jew than any of the other justices. >> sounds like it wasn't saying very much. >> it wasn't saying very much, truly. i'll give you one example and one great anecdote. he didn't keep kosher. but when he went to these great seders, he would make them strictly kosher. one of the years alan dershowitz was a strictly orthodox jew.

he had a very expensive kosher seder. on his supreme court letter head he wrote out the goldberg family recipe for the traditional passover dish. spiritually he was a jewish jew, as was his wife. one quick anecdote -- it will be very quick, i hope. >> it's five minutes to 8:00 and we're not even up to fordis here. >> he always told the story of visiting while he was secretary of labor his elderly jewish mother in chicago. while he was over sleeping one day and just kind of half awake the phone rings and his mother asks who is this and it's

president kennedy. so he answers the president. he says the president of which? >> just a word or two about the yiddish kite of justice fortis. then i'm going to ask you to reflect again on my question of the extent, if any, to which -- and i know you're not a lawyer or legal scholar, in your research you were able to discern any impact on the jurisprudence of these people. >> yeah. >> of the fact that they were at least born jewish. >> fortis was born into an orthodox family. he grew up in memphis, tennessee. he also pretty much cut his ties

with orthodoxy in high school and continued to be really indifferent to anything in jewish religious practice or tradition. he is also his wife was not jewish and she was not particularly interested in judaism at all and she continued in this -- you know, pushed him in that direction. he was the first in his class at yale law school. the same legend has it that while brandeis was first in his class at harvard, they said the same thing about fortis. fortises mentor was william douglas. he also couldn't get a job in a big city blue shoe law firm. so he went to work on the new deal. of course, as i said before,

that's when he meets lbj. he eventually forms a new law firm in washington. arnold, fortis and porter. which today is arnold and parter. his wife was a tax specialist, becomes a partner in the same firm. they have a combined salary in the middle 1950s of over $400,000. he would've to take a 90% salary cut to join the court. his wife discouraged him tremendously in that area. when he visited, they never had children, his jewish nephews and nieces in memphis, they told him about what it was like to live a jewish life, which he knew very

little about except for one thing. he was very pro israel. his closest friend in washington for many years of was harmon, the former israeli ambassador to the united states. >> some of his best friends were jewish. >> i should put that in the book. >> maybe the answer to this question is obvious since the justices that we've talked about so far, that none of them -- either they had no jewish upbringing or they had a jewish upbringing which they forsook. frankfurter or fortis, which was just a categorical rejection,

this is a disability of my birth that i'm going to try to over come. >> yeah. >> is it fair to say that it's hard to discern the effect of they judaism? >> very hard. his parents, i guess, when they had children and the when justice brandeis had jewish grandchildren, then he began to right cards to them for rosh hashanah. it's fair to say that the judaism had very little, if anything, impact on their jurisprudence, on their judicial

opinions. even in the case of cardozo. the one thing it did do, which is a legacy of both brandeis and frankfurter, for the first time they appointed jewish law clerks. some of the law clerks were much more reline of scrimmaggioureli. one other exception, goldberg. on church/state issues, goldberg's jewish background did have some influence on his opinions. >> so a couple things more about justice brandeis. you talk about this in your

book, but justice brandeis had an uncle with whom he was very close, close enough to take his middle name who was very, very observant. do you want to talk about that just a little bit? >> sure. his uncle's name was louis democr dembet. his uncle was one of the leaders of the orthodox jewish community. he was a jewish scholar, actually pubbished a couple of books on the bible. he was an orthodox jew. brandeis recalls in his letters

very mem rorably his uncle was fer haven't fervent abolition n. now his uncle was one of the founders of the republican party. that's the party of lincoln and the abolitionists in kentucky and was one of the three people who put lincoln's name and nomination at the 1860 republican convention. there was a very great closeness between the two. it was his uncle's legal scholarship also that inspired brandeis. his religiousty. >> let's turn to zionism.

it is an important theme of the justices we've been talking about. at o-- >> he worked to assiduously on the court, which was an extra judicial activity, pushing and persuading woodrow wilson to support the declaration. >> how do you explain the fact that we have somebody who was raised in a resolutely secular family in kentucky, you know,

the son of a descendant of the german jewish immigration, living in a community very unlike the sort of existence that frankfurter came out of and moved together in bed-stuy and the lower east side. when does he, quote, discover zionism and what does zionism have to do with louis brandeis's persona and believes? >> the first 50 years of his life he had no jewish connection at all. the genesis of this, which i talk a lot about in my book is he was invited to be one of the negotiators at the garment workers strike in new york in 1910. for the first time in his life he met eastern european jews.

his other jewish friends had always been very assimilated german jews. all of a sudden it struck a chord with him. these were yiddish speaking jews. he didn't know yiddish. he became interested from that experience in zionism. some of the people he mentioned the there, henry moscowitz, they told him more and more about zionism. they also told him more and more that he didn't know about his

uncle who was a profound zionist leader and an early zionist leader. as time went on, he was jewishly almost illiterate. he began to read more and more about judaism and he began to find a tremendous link between zionism and americanism. that was the chi fkey for him. his famous phrase at one point was that to be a better american -- >> i can remember the phrase. to be a great american, you first have to be a great jew. and to be a great jew, you first have to be a zionist. >> exactly. >> this is a perplexing set of propositio propositions. >> it is. >> probably amazing to the vast majority of americans who not only don't feel that they need

to be a great jew to be a great american and don't have the tools to become a great jew. >> it created a lot of tension because so many jewish leaders didn't feel the same way. but once he became involved, it became his passion. he had some wealthy jewish friends like the "washington post" family and filene's basement and others. by the way, it should be noted that benjamin cardoza officiated at felix frankfurter's wedding. brandeis was a charismatic

speaker and close the wilson. he made zionism respectable amongst christians as well as jews. in fact -- >> i'm going to give you the hook because i need to ask you to tell us one thing about frankfurter and i'm giving myself the hook in two minutes so people in the audience get ready with your questions. i could pass around all of the unasked questions that i have if anybody flags. just to summarize my understanding of frankfurter. while he in many ways was a protege of brandeis, very very different as a personality. very very different in background. but was actually for many many years actually paid by brandeis to write and publish as a very

progressive public intellectual and deputized by brandeis to get involved and promote the zionist movement. the book recounts a fascinating story in which frankfurter negotiates a letter from the then king of saudi arabia, saying that arabs favor the balfour deck llaratideclaration. is it fair to say that frankfurter's devotion to zionism was more in the nature of an assignment. >> very much so. >> frankfurter was -- both brandeis and frankfurter and fortis --

>> it was abe fortis who drafted lbj's 1967 state of the union address. >> there's no reason to think that felixfurter had an overwhelming degree of influence both over fdr and over

frankfurter's own many proteges in the administration. i'd like you to recount for us the episode you describe in connection with the holocaust of j jan karski -- this is something they did n that i did not know and i find amazing. >> jan was the representative of the polish government in compilexile. he had gotten into the auschwitz death camp and realized what was going on there. he then became the emissary to

tell the western world what was happening in the holocaust. and he comes to the united states at the end of 1942 and with a report that he wrote but also his firsthand account of what was happening in the final solution. now, first he is told frankfurter is a very close friend of the polish ambassador to the united states. so he tells him you have to meet with justice frankfurter. jan tells him in documented detail about the horrors that he's witnessed firsthand and about the nazi war against the jews and all -- and after speaking for close to a half an hour, frankfurter gets up -- he was always very formal -- and says, sir, i cannot believe what

you're saying. and jan says to him, well, mr. justice, i wouldn't lie to you. he said, no, you misunderstand me. he said, i cannot believe in this 20th century that something as horrible as you're saying is actually taking place. he then turns his back on him and walks out. the polish ambassador asked him to set up a meeting with fdr to convey this. frankfurter basically meets with fdr before and tells him that, well, he himself cannot believe that something like this is taking place. now, what's incredible about this, frankfurter never lobbies fdr. one might have been expected that frankfurter who used to lobby the president on a whole host of issues, including appointing some of his students to federal judgeships. he had several year-long

campaigns to appoint learned hands to the supreme court. when it came to the holocaust, he did nothing. in fact, he had an elderly uncle who was his favorite uncle solomon frankfurter who was arrested by the nazi police in vienna and was held prisoner for several days. one would have expected then frankfurter to go to the president and say please do something to help my favorite uncle. he didn't. instead he went through an interesting connection talking with lady astor in england who he knew as a friend. and one last thing, he was a protege of henry stinson who was then the secretary of war. his neighbor and close friend

w was the deputy secretary of war. john mccoy was the war department official responsible for vetoing a war department proposal to bomb auschwitz the death camp and the railroads to them. he would see mccoy every day and talk to him. he never tried to persuade mccoy to change that. >> this was at a point in time in which allied bombers were bombing the industrial sections of auschwitz. >> actually the industrial section of auschwitz itself, this was in late 1944 when there was still 750 hungarian jews who were to be deported to auschwitz in the months before the end of the war. had they bombed even the railroads to auschwitz, it would

have slowed up the nazi process of murder by many, many months. but mccoy successfully vetoed this and felix frankfurter, as far as we know, never did a thing to try to dissuade him or his good friend henry stinson. >> we're throwing it open to the audience. we have a member of the audience who's been sitting patient by by the assigned microphone. >> i'm rashad thomas. i have two questions. my first question is did any of the justices encounter anti-semitism after they became supreme court justices? and number two, is there something distinctive about their jewishness that contributed to by and large their liberalism? i think most of the justices who have been jews on the court are left of center in their

philosophies. did their jewishness play a role in that? thank you. >> the first question, which is easy. only brandeis and cardoza and the anti-semitism they faced while on the court whas from justice mcreynolds. they were all liberals, even frankfurter when he started out. ruth bad eer ginsburg has writt about this, attributing her support for social justice and for so many liberal social and economic issues to her jewish background and to the judaism that she inculcated. in this article she said that me and so many of my colleagues are descended from rabbis and we've inculcated this. she many of the jewish justices for example like brandeis and

frankfurter even in his early days didn't know enough about judaism to realize that the predisposition for social justice and for helping the poor, et cetera, was coming from a tradition that they didn't really understand. but they were all nominated by liberal democratic presidents with the exception of cordoza. most people have attributed -- including ruth bader ginsburg has written about this. their liberalism came from almost their dna. most of them were descended from very strongly religious families. a footnote on ruth bader ginsburg. at the age of 15 she was the camp rabbi at her -- and she was

known as that at her summer camp in the adirondacks. >> yes, sir? >> thank you very much for your words today. >> yes, sir? >> thank you very much for your work today. i am a college student here in the washington, d.c., area. >> what's your name? >> my name is nathan weitzler. >> hi. >> i have been deeply interested in jewish history for several years. actually, since i was in elementary school and your book is one of the most meaningful books i've read in a long time. i've read it from cover to cover. >> thank you so much. >> you're very welcome. my question is throughout your research what did you find most interesting about learning about justice goldberg's efforts for

ending the death penalty? >> that's interesting and that may be derivative of the jewish background. he went on a campaign, he tried to get a campaign going for the penalty to be unconstitutional. the problem was he had enough resign from the court when he did he might have achieved himself by the time the first death penalty cases came out and they're really attacking the constitutionality at this of the death penalty. it was in the 1970s when he had been off the court. he and alan dershowitz, i wrote an article in 1969 about rendering the death penalty unconstitutional. that i would say was one area

where his -- he was probably still the most knowledgeable in the jewish religious tradition. that came, i think, from his jewish -- his understand iing o what then was called kukunolum, jewish values. >> thank you. sir? >> my name is shala gillman. i beg to disagree with you slightly. louis's bran dies's family lived within walkings distance and the entire jewish community lived in a central area of louisville which was very open at that time to general man jews and especially polish jews. now turning to your -- i'd like to present a slightly different perspective on this, rabbi.

when i studied at talmud and i perceived the obligations of a jew to the treatment of employees, to the treatment of the relationships of other people and i read the decisions of justice brandice as to how you treat your employees and then when i look at justice cardozo, not necessarily when he was on the supreme court but when i looked at his decisions on the court of appeals of new york and i see the salmon versus mylan case, what is it, the pontillius requirement of honor among partners and the relationship of partners and then i see the fallsgraph case of proximate cause. what do these things result from. these all stem from talmudic lessons of how we have

contractual relations, commercial relationships. so i -- i can draw a relationship to the understanding of jewish law to our civil law. >> yeah. >> your comment, rabbi? >> okay. there definitely is a relationship in the case of cardozo who did, although he wasn't practicing, but did inculcate a certain understanding of jewish understandings. brandice really didn't have that jewish knowledge or jewish education. he later became very interested in jew day i6udaismjudaism, but one can draw a connection between his decisions in those areas and his -- maybe they had been inculcated subconsciously, but he did not have the knowledge or understanding of

jewish teachingings, rabinnic teachings that for example cardozzo did. he attended the synagogue so he had those teachings. it's a progressive form. he was one of the leading progressives in america at that point. >> brian dodge's name stays alive with the university of louisville's law school. >> yes. >> louis brandice law school. >> which is wonderful, it really s. >> that would change in the past 20 or 30 years. >> okay. we have one from the left, now we've got one from the right. >> rabbi, my name is jonathan gala, class of 1985, brandice

university. >> by way of this venue. i'll beat my brandice cohorts. my questions to follow, president wilson, a program just put together -- it was put together some time ago by the famous author whose name escapes me. it will come to me. it was a three-part series about world war i and it focused a lot on wilson and it had emphasis on unfortunately some assets of his racism, his anti-semitism and

his small mindedness the way he approached things. woodrow wilson, not brady brandice. a lot of his up bringings from that point. the first part is what really drove him, i mean, from everything you learned about him to sort of go beyond that way that he thought, small mindedness, which is actually exemplified in the show about why he was so emphatic, meaning wilson, about points. he wanted them to go in the way he wanted them and if congress wouldn't pass it the way he wanted it, he didn't want it done at all. to allow brandice to become a supreme court justice. and the second part is, excuse me, has to do with palsgraph. what jurisprudence did they add in the area of causation and torts that's famous today. >> i may defer to my legal colleague here about the palsgraph decision or to my son

in the audience, he's a law student. and a brilliant one. >> i think it's fair to say scanning the audience that it would be more challenging to pick somebody here without legal training. >> that's right, like myself. let me answer the other question. one of the ironies is we know now we know now that he re-introduced segregation into the capital. on the other hand, he was philosemetic. he appointed the first jewish professors. he appointed the first jewish new jersey state supreme court justice. in addition besides brandice, we didn't abandon him. he appointed several jews from bernard baruc, one of his close

advisors to i'm trying to -- the whole federal reserve system was the brainchild of one of the wilburs, i think, who was a close adviser. and he had many jewish advisers, so there's no record of his being anti-semitic. there is certainly a growing record that some of you may have followed at princeton univers y university. there's an evident to take the name woodrow wilson off the woodrow wilson school of foreign affairs. it seems to be a paradox that he really was not anti-semitic from any record we have. he was certainly a southern racist. >> yes. okay. last question from the left. >> my friend. >> we are out of time. >> rabbi, you talked a lot about harvard law school. >> identify yourself. >> i'm tevi troy.

we know that all of the supreme court justices have graduated from harvard or yale. can you, a, say did any of these jewish justices not go to one of these elite law schools and can you talk about the law schools in normalizing or kosherizing them to be on the supreme court? >> what's interesting, of course, with -- the only thing -- i just mentioned eric garrland. he was going to harvard and yale. brandice, harvard law school, he went to columbia, a fairly good law school, might i say. top of his class at harvard law school. goldberg went to northwestern. not officially ivy league, but

tremendously good law school. fordice went to yale, of course. ruth bader ginsburg by the way went to harvard and yale. she followed her husband who was a year ahead of her. when he moved to new york to get a job she went to could lumbia she's the only not only woman, one of the few people who were on two law reviews, harvard and columbia law review. steven breyer went to harvard and stanford. and elena kagan went to princeton and harvard law school. part of the acrulturation was the decline of anti-semetism.

he received much more notoriety tried to introduce a quota on jewish admissions at harvard. it was through the jewish students who grew up most -- frankfurter, fordice were the first members of their family to go to college. then they went all to these very prestigious law schools. and so it was part of the greater acceptance in the law school that helped the change -- helped bring about a bequeath of anti-semetism in the legal profession. to end this on what's very interesting, when brandice's daughter and gilbert's mother

graduated at the top of the class, brandice was very interested and she had hoped, at least the story i'm told, to go to harvard, yale, columbia. in 1917 there were no women admitted. they would love to admit her but it would be another ten years before they would admit women. she went to not a bad law school, university of chicago where she met her husband, another law student, but i think it's what she said as the decline of -- there was a gradual decline of anti-semetism in the american legal system. it was fost zblerd part by so many of these lawyers who had been either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants whose parents had never gone to college. they went to the top elite law schools and doing well there and having distinguished legal

careers thriving from that. thank you all very much. it's been a great audience. [ applause ] >> great. tonight on american history tv on cspan 3, we take a look at brown versus the board of education in topeka, kansas. the case that struck down public segregation in schools. join us at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan 3. all persons having business before the honorableup