Louis Dembitz Brandeis

Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1999) was a scholar, a lawyer, a U.S. Supreme Court Judge, and a Zionist leader.

Brandeis displayed his intellectual abilities and love of learning at an early age. He graduated first in his Harvard Law School class at the age of 21.

Brandeis was a highly successful lawyer. He believed law needed to be interpreted in relation to a changing society. Brandeis developed a reputation of being "the people's attorney."

President Wilson nominated Brandeis to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1916. Brandeis served on the Supreme Court for 22 years.

At a time when the Zionist movement in Europe was being destroyed, Brandeis helped to build up an American Zionist movement. He was honorary president of the Zionist Organization of America and the World Zionist Organization. He helped the Palestine Restoration Fund and the Palestine Emergency Fund. He had an important and positive influence on the American government's approval of the Balfour Declaration.

Brandeis believed that America was good for Jews, and that Jews were good for America. He once said, "The twentieth-century ideals of America have been the ideals of the Jew for twenty centuries."