Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof Hero: Justice Louis Brandeis Louis D. Brandeis was the first Jew to serve on the Supreme Court. He was an early supporter of Israel and helped immigrants in New York City’s poor neighborhoods. His influence was so great that two schools — Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, and the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville — bear his name.
v. Oregon. The case made Brandeis famous. Many groups wanted to hire him to represent workers in cases against their bosses. In 1910 a group of garment workers in New York tried to get better treatment from factory owners. They held a strike until their demands were met. Louis Brandeis was brought in to mediate the strike. He became known as the “People’s Attorney,” because he believed in representing everyone. Brandeis Discovers Judaism Even though he was Jewish, Brandeis did not know very many Jews. He thought of Judaism as just a religion. He didn’t even consider himself very Jewish. The experience with the garment workers exposed him to the large Jewish population that had settled in New York. Brandeis began to understand about Jews being part of a nation. Around the same time Brandeis was introduced to Jacob de Haas and Aaron Aaronsohn. Aaronsohn was a botanist who lived in Palestine, and de Haas was a prominent English Jew. The two men were Zionists. Along with their friend Rabbi Stephen Wise, they turned Brandeis into a Zionist.
Beginnings Louis D. Brandeis was born in 1856 in Louisville, Kentucky, to parents who had emigrated from Prague. His parents believed in hard work and taught him how important it was to learn. His family was not very religious. Louis did not have a bar mitzvah, and he did not set foot in a synagogue until much later in his life. Louis’ hero was his uncle, Lewis Dembitz, who was a lawyer active in politics. He encouraged his nephew to attend the Annen Realschule, a prestigious high school in Germany. Louis loved school and was able to get into Harvard Law School, where he was a spectacular student.
Brandeis and the Supreme Court In 1916 a spot opened up on the Supreme Court. President Wilson picked the best lawyer he knew: Louis Brandeis. Wilson’s choice surprised a lot of people. Supreme Court justices are usually judges first. Most Supreme Court justices were old men who didn’t believe in making big changes.
The People’s Attorney One of his first big cases was in 1907. Lawmakers in Oregon wanted to make conditions better for workers, so they passed some new laws. One of those laws made it illegal for women to work too many hours in a week. Poor women often worked because their families needed the money. Because they were desperate for jobs, they ended up having to work very long hours. A man who owned a laundry business in Portland didn’t like the law. He thought that he should be able to hire his employees for as many hours as they were willing to work. He got in trouble for violating Oregon’s law. The state of Oregon hired Louis D. Brandeis. The case came before the U.S. Supreme Court as Muller
Brandeis had many enemies and they tried to influence the Senate to not approve Brandeis. One senator said, “[Brandeis] is a Hebrew…some of his ideas might not be the same as those of a man possessing an Anglo-Saxon mind.” The antiSemitic attacks hurt Brandeis. He was proud of his intelligence, and he was just as proud of being Jewish. Being told his ideas weren’t good enough because he was Jewish was very hurtful. Brandeis was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice on June 4, 1916 and served until Feb. 13, 1939. He died on October 5, 1941. 55
