The People’s Judge: Jacob Panken, Yiddish Socialism, and American Law

This article explores the career of Jacob Panken, the first judge elected on a Socialist Party ticket in the United States. Situating Panken in an early twentieth-century Jewish immigrant milieu and analyzing some of the cases over which he presided, it shows how he employed legal realism to weave Y...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of legal history 2019-03, Vol.59 (1), p.31-148
Main Author: Tevis, Britt P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article explores the career of Jacob Panken, the first judge elected on a Socialist Party ticket in the United States. Situating Panken in an early twentieth-century Jewish immigrant milieu and analyzing some of the cases over which he presided, it shows how he employed legal realism to weave Yiddish socialism, a political philosophy espoused by turn-of-the-century Eastern European Jews in New York City, into his judicial decisions. Illuminating Panken’s unique place in the American judiciary, it contributes to scholarship on American socialism, twentieth-century American Jewish lawyers, and local legal histories.
ISSN:0002-9319
2161-797X
DOI:10.1093/ajlh/njy026