Original jurisdiction are preserved here at the National Archives as are opinions, docket books, minutes, attorney rolls with our earliest records starting in 1790. We also have the audio recordings of the Supreme Court and the majority have been digitized and available online. We are working on a project to prepare all of these digital recordings for our online catalog and we hope to have them available by september of this year. Since its founding in 1934 the National Archives has hosted Supreme Court justices in person as well as in its records. In some of the justices we will discuss tonight have had close connections with this agency. In the 1950s Justice Felix frankfurter served on the board of the National Historical publications and records commission, followed by justice brendan, rehnquist, blackman and associater. In the 1960s Justice Goldberg served on the archivist advisory council. The archives launched a series of conversations with Supreme Court justices of the United States including associate justic justices stephen breyer, thomas and alito. Yale law frefr and constitutional scholar ramar leads these discussions focused on issues related to the constitution and their impact on the american people. Those are available on youtube or you stream. Now lets get to tonights program. So we can learn more about these Supreme Court justices. Please welcome to the podium Russell Smith president of the Jewish Historical Society of greater washington. [ applause ] thank you. Good evening, everyone and welcome. I am delighted on behalf of the Jewish Historical Society and the Board Members who are present tonight to thank the National Archives, especially sue tan clifton for partnering with us for this annual program to commemorate Jewish American heritage month. We also want to thank the Supreme CourtHistorical Society and its staff for joining us in tonights program and a special thank you to dr. Resnikoff a long time friend who first suggested that dr. Dalin come to us as a speaker and helped us connect with both dr. Dalin and seth waxman. What a pair for tonight. I want to welcome frank gilbert, a past president of the Jewish Historical Society who is also the grandson of Justice Lewis brandeis. Thanks to franks generosity the society is fortunate to have in our collection Justice Brandeis law School Notebook and a Beautiful Oil portrait. As many of you may know, the Jewish Historical Society is planning a new lillian and Albert Small Jewish Museum in washington as part of the capitol crossing Development Project which is a few blocks from here. Last november our historic 1876 synagogue was cut from its base and moved for the second time in its life 50 feet into the middle of third street northwest where its going to remain until the third and final move to the newly reopened corner of 3rd and f streets northwest and there it will become the centerpiece of our brand new museum complex. Tonights topic of jewish Supreme Court justices is one that we plan to make a key element in the museums exhibition and programming. Tonight i have the honor of introducing our participants and thereby fulfilling the societys mission of joining history, Current Events and the promise of the future, together to tell one of the many stories of jewish washington. Dr. David dalin, historian and rabbi, is the author, coauthor or editor of 11 books, including religion and state in the American Jewish experience coauthored with one of our prior panelists dr. Jonathan sarna and the president s of the situates and the jews. His articles and book reviews have appeared in a variety of publications. Tonight dr. Dalin will talk about his just published book which many of you have in your hands jewish justices of the Supreme Court from brandeis to kagan which has already received excellent reviews since its release in april. In this first history of the eight jews who have served or currently serve on the u. S. Supreme court dr. En examines their lives and legal careers as well as the changing role of jews within the american Legal Profession. Dr. Dalin will be joined in conversation with seth waxman who is himself a distinguished leader in the washington and National Legal community. Mr. Waxman served as the 41st solicitor general of the United States from 1997 until january 2001. After leaving government mr. Waxman taught both as a visiting fellow at Harvard Universitys john f. Kennedy school of government and as a visiting professor at the Georgetown University law center. Mr. Waxman has argued 33 cases before the Supreme Court and has tried and argued dozens of high profile complex civil and criminal cases in federal and state courts across the country. So now im sure after all that youre ready and i am, too, its my pleasure to invite dr. Dalin and seth waxman to the stage. Gentlemen. [ applause ] this is a pleasure. Its so good to be here. Good evening. Im seth waxman, this is the guest of honor and the author, david dalin, rabbi david dalin. We couldnt hear any of the introduction because we were being held in a secure location. It was great. Good. But the reviews are terrific. Its already tending on twitter. Before we start let me just say i think i will i have about four and a half hours worth of questions to ask you. Oh, good. But im going to limit myself to about 45 minutes and then sounds good. Assuming i can keep track of time which im not very good at open it up for audience because i always find these things people are here because theyre interested, they have particular questions and we have a great font of knowledge. Im told that if you have a question you should go to the aisles to the microphones, but i have to say that i dont see any microphon microphones. Oh, okay. Okay. Anyway, they will magically appear. As youre thinking of questions and thinking about asking a question once i open it up in case i forget to tell you, please make your way to the mike because this program is being broadcast and in addition to the packet that either one or both of us wont be able to hear you and your fellow attendees may not be able to hear, people in the Television Audience also would like to hear what your question is. And i also want to make sure in case the previous speakers havent already told you this that there is a book signing immediately following the program and the author himself will be available to answer questions and sign books for you. So welcome. So weve professor dalin and i met yesterday and we immediately agreed on the convention that we would refer to each other by our first names. So, david, let me just start by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself and your own sort of professional journey. I know that you are an ordained rabbi and you are an author of many articles and books about American Jewish political history. Yeah. How did you get to you know, whats your story before picking up the pen to write this book . Well, seth, thats a great question. I also want to thank you, im honored to have you as my interlock tour for this conversation. I am actually an ordained rabbi, but most of my work is as an American Jewish historian and i have my biggest field of interest is American Jewish political history and biography and ive coauthored a book before on the president of the United States of the jews and ive written major articles not only about jews in the presidency but the president ial appointment process and the various president s who have appointed jews to the cabinets and to other offices and the relationship of this appointment process to the Jewish Community and through that i got i became tremendously interested with the whole subject of jewish appointees to the Supreme Court and their relationship also to the president s who appointed them and also to their lives, legal careers and jewish personas as well. And i many years ago i became fascinated with brandeis, lewis d. Brandeis and of course i attended Brandeis University as did my daughter and i began reading biographies of brandeis and that led me into judicial biographies of several people and i gravitated more and more to the jewish justices. After you read the several biographies of brandeis, of cordoza, frankfurter, even two or three of abe fortis, there had never been a book bringing it up to the president and this book actually goes through the 2016 election. So this is as i think was said before not only the first history of the jewish justices who have served in the past or who currently serve on the Supreme Court, but also a collective biography as it were of the jewish men and women who have served on the court. And thats been an abiding interest for many, many years and it finally i finally decided it was a choice between two things, ive also written about jews in baseball, which could be a future book, but i finally decided on the jewish justices instead. Well, i will be very happy to come interview you about your forthcoming jews in baseball. Thats a deal. Jews in squash, jews in polo, whatever it is that you choose to and those are two areas i hadnt even thought about. Probably the jews in squash will be a relatively small chapter i would guess. Well, the ball is small but i think without doing the research as a historian im sure you appreciate that there may be a lot of surprises here right in the National Archives. Right here. In fact, yes, i in fact, god willing if this book comes i will come to the National Archives because i know a lot about jews in baseball, a little bit about jews in basketball, but precious little about jews in polo and squash. So this will be an incentive and i will email you immediately as soon as i begin work on this. Terrific, because i think i actually have some information i can provide you about this. This is great. So, you know, i have to say that, you know, in talking to people about this event and people asking about the event, one question that i got that ive 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, im 65, so you can be significantly younger than i am and still have had a long successful career in the law, but one question one recurring question that ive gotten, even from people in my generation, is like is there a reason to think about a group of justices as jewish justices . Yeah. And the answer obviously in your mind is yes. Yes. So why dont you start by answering all those questions that ive gotten. Like why write about jewish justices . Is it a big deal. Well, it is. I will tell you why. Before Justice Brandeis was appointed in january of 1960, before that appointment it would have been it was unimaginable that you would have a jewish justice on the court. I want to come back to the question in a minute of antisemitism, the rise and then decline of antisemitism in the american Legal Profession, but so many things were different then. It would have truly been unimaginable in brandeis day that there would be not one, not two, but three jews on the Supreme Court simultaneously and as much so that there would be a Supreme Court of six catholic justices and three jewish justices and no protestants on the court, which from 2010 answer elena kagan succeeded John Paul Stevens who was the last protestant until the appointment now of kneel gorsuch who is an a miss can a palian, you know, but this kind of thing would have been unimaginable. In the same era you had in the two decades that brandeis was on the court you had the emergence of what became a catholic seat on the court, what became a catholic seat on the court and eventually the africanamerican seat up on the court. And now there are three women on the court and i think its taken as axiomatic that there would continue to be one or two women on the court. Now this brings, if i can, the whole question about how this came about, antisemitism within the Legal Profession and is it okay to address this with brandeis or well on im going to ask you you decide whether to address it now. Its certainly something i want you to talk about. Sure. Sure. I was thinking that for those two or three people in the country who cant rattle off automatically who these, you know, sometimes mysterious eight jewish justices are, maybe it would help to set things off just by having you identify who they were, who they were nominated by and when they served and just a couple of sentences. Im going to, time permitting, ask you questions about each of them and what theyre, as your subtitle says, your legacy is, but i guess we may have to continue this discussion until tomorrow afternoon. Why dont we just start off by saying, we know louie brandeis was the first one. Lets go through the eight, particularly the ones that have now passed away, so that people in the audience understand the sort of landscape of what were going to be talking about, in addressing, among other things, the rise and fall or ascendancy and the fall of antisemitism in the country and in the Legal Profession. Wonderful. Brandeis was appointed by Woodrow Wilson in january 1916. It became a major issue of controversy in the wilson administration. He was facing a very tough reelection battle in the following november against Charles Evans hoous, the former governor of new york who actually resigned his Supreme Court seat to run against wilson. And by the way, if anyone wants to know the stories that some are apocryphal and some not, charles went to sleep the night of the 1916 election thinking hed won the election and wilson, assuming hed lost, and they both woke up to the change in realities. Now, the brandeis nomination and Senate Confirmation battle went on for four months. It was arguably the most contentious Senate Confirmation battle until the battle of robert bork in 1987. And much of the controversy he to do, brandeis was considered one of the most progressive reformers. He had been Woodrow Wilsons many economic adviser since wilson ran for election in 1912, and wilson was attorney general, but the avalanche of antisemitic opposition foretold that, but wilson remained committed to appointing him and when he nominated him he persevered and stood by him and later on, maybe we can talk about the actual opposition that was most of the opposition was antisemitic in nature and not because of his role of what was called the peoples attorney, but it was and wilson had one advantage, by the way, that President Trump did not have when he nominated Merrick Garland last year. Probably most of you know that Merrick Garland would have been the ninth jewish justice on the court, but wilson had a Democratic Senate and there were several progressive republicans who crossed party lines, so to speak to support brandeis, so that all helped. So let me just this is fascinating, but i want to make sure that in this introductory section we get through all eight. Yes. Just give us the real, bare bones, thumbnail sketch. Real, bare bones, thumbnail sketch. He finally gets confirmed in 1916 and he serves until when . 23 years until 1939 and he succeeded. First of all, Benjamin Cardoza was appointed with him in 1932 by herbert hoover. Seven of the eight jewish justices were appointed by democratic president s, but hoover was, of course, the republican president. Whats interesting is cardoza was not only a lifelong democrat, but it supported al smith against hoover publicly in the 1928 president ial election. So hoover transcended Party Allegiance and just to conclude, cardoza was considered the preeminent american jurist and judge not serving on the Supreme Court and most historians and biographers and hoover didnt have the greatest presidency in American History and his appointment of cardoza is considered one of his truly great achievements as president. So cardozo dies and he had been ill when he came to washington after six years in the court in 1938