Louis D. Brandeis: An Inspiring Life

Legacy

Louis D. Brandeis died on October 5, 1941. Sympathies poured in to Alice Brandeis from around the world. Government officials, judges, editors, academics, student zionists, rabbis, friends, and family all relayed their condolences and expressed their thoughts about Brandeis’s immense contribution to American life and his championship of Zionism.

The University of Louisville Law School was named in Brandeis’s honor. His ashes were buried under the porch of the Law School building.

 

 

The Harvard Law Review honored Brandeis by dedicating an edition to him after his death. 1 In 1968, Harvard Law School established the Louis D. Brandeis Professorship of Law.

Rabbi Israel Goldstein, heading a group of Jewish community leaders, gave life and substance to an idea for a secular Jewish university, first proposed to Brandeis in 1931 by a Zionist named Abraham Sakier. Less than a decade after Brandeis's death, this institution was opened and named in his honor. The University emphasized a non-discriminatory policy for admission and a student body small enough to encourage the development of community. 2

1Letter from Harvard Law Review to Alice G. Brandeis, Oct. 15, 1941. Box 50, I.II.d.2, Louis Dembitz Brandeis Collection, Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, ascdepartment@brandeis.edu, Brandeis University Library.

2 Pasternack, Susan A. Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis: Guided by the Light of Reason: Commemorating the 150th Birthday of the Late Supreme Court Justice and University Namesake. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University, 2007.