A second “Durban Conference” was held in Geneva in 2009.  Although the U.S., Canada, Italy and several other countries boycotted what had by this time become clear would be another hate conference, I decided to travel to Geneva in an effort to restore the human rights agenda to its proper priorities, or if that wasn’t possible, to expose the UN Human Rights Council for what it has become—an enemy of neutral and universal human rights.  It would be an uphill fight because the primary speaker invited to address the second Durban Conference was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-denying President of Iran.

I worked with several genuine human rights organizations in an effort to shame the Human Rights Council into broadening its agenda to include the genocides in Africa and other serious human rights abuses around the globe.  We brought real victims of human rights abuses from Rwanda, Darfur and other locations where genocides had been ignored, or even facilitated, by the U.N.  We conducted a parallel human rights conference in which we took testimony from these ignored victims and witnesses, to whom the U.N. had refused to listen.  I also delivered an address on the inversion of “human rights” and “human wrongs.”  

As it turned out, I was staying in the same hotel as Ahmadinejad.  My wife and I were having a pleasant drink in the lobby bar, when Ahmadinejad and his entourage paraded through the lobby.  He looked at us and smiled.  I approached one of his handlers and introduced myself.  I told him that I would like to challenge the President to a debate about the Holocaust.  He asked, “where, at Harvard?”  Ahmadinejad had previously spoken at Columbia University and I suspected that he might welcome an invitation from Harvard and the platform such as an event would accord him.  I replied, “No, the debate should be at Auschwitz; that’s where the evidence is.”  He said he would communicate my offer to the president, who, he told me, was on the way to a press conference on the Mezzanine floor of the hotel.  I went to the press conference and tried to ask Ahmadinejad whether he would debate me at Auschwitz.  I was immediately hauled off by the Swiss police, removed from the hotel and told I would not be allowed to return “for security reasons.”  I insisted that “security reasons” did not justify protecting the President from a hostile question, but they told me that my belongings would be removed from my room and my key changed.  I immediately called someone I knew in the Obama administration, who phoned the US Embassy in Geneva and I was allowed back in the hotel with an apology.  The photograph of me being forcibly removed from the hotel was flashed around the world, with the following caption:  

“Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, is led away after declaring he planned to challenge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about his views on the Holocaust and Israel minutes before the meeting between Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz and the Iranian president in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 19, 2009.”

The next day Ahmadinejad was scheduled to give his address to the Durban Conference.  We were not allowed into the Chamber in which he was speaking, but were told to go to a special room where we could watch and listen to his talk.  We assembled in that room and watched as Ahmadinejad was greeted with applause by many of the delegates.  When he began to speak, we discovered that his words, delivered in Farsi, were not being translated to those of us in the separate room, but only to those in Assembly Chamber.  This was not acceptable and so I marched to the Assembly Chamber and simply walked in.  Several delegations were absent and so we simply took their seats.  But not for long.  As soon as Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust, which he did near the beginning of his speech, I stood up and shouted “Shame” and walked out, passing directly in front of his lectern.  Many others walked out as well, including several European delegations.  Ahmadinejad’s talk was a fiasco, and was so reported by the media.  He had made a fool of himself, with little help from us.

The following year, the Durban Conference on human rights was once against convened, this time in New York.  Once again, we convened parallel conferences.  In my address, I made the following point:  
     One important reason why there is no peace in the Middle East can be summarized tragically in two letters, UN.  That building dedicated in theory to peace has facilitated terrorism, stood idly by genocide, given a platform to holocaust deniers, and disincentivized the Palestinians from negotiating a reasonable two-state solution.  

                         …

     How dare states such as Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iran, Bahrain, Syria, Belarus and other tyrannies too numerous to mention -- but if you want to see the list, just go over to the next building -- read the list of nation states and you'll see more than half of them fit this definition of undemocratic tyrannies.  How dare those tyrannies lecture Israel about human rights?   How dare states such as Turkey, that have attacked their own Kurdish minorities and Armenian minorities, and Russia, which has attacked its own Chechnyan minority, how dare these warmongering countries lecture Israel about peace?  

     How dare Norway with its long and sordid history of anti-Semitism and collaboration with evil, a history which tragically persists to this day, how dare Norway lecture Israel on equality?  How dare South Africa, which continues to practice de facto, though not de jure apartheid, call Israel, which is far more integrated than South Africa, an apartheid state?  

     Is there no sense of shame in that building?  Has the word hypocrisy lost all meaning across the street?  Does no one recognize the need for a single, neutral standard of human rights?  Have human rights now become the permanent weapon of choice for those who practice human wrongs?  For shame.  For shame.  

As I spoke these harsh words in the shadow on the U.N. building, I wondered what my mentor Arthur Goldberg, who left a lifetime job on the Supreme Court, to go to the U.N., would think of what I was saying.  He always defended and supported me, but he loved and admired the U.N.  I think he would have approved of the thrust of my talk, if not of every word, as he did when another one of his mentees, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, used powerful words to condemn the actions of the U.N.  

If an organization—governmental or non-governmental—is to remain true to a genuine commitment to universal and neutral human rights, it must prioritize the use of its resources.  “The worst first” must be its governing criteria.  The “worst” has two major components. First and foremost is the nature and scope of the human wrongs:  genocide, mass murder, widespread torture and mutilation of dissidents, rape as a policy, slavery, genuine apartheid and other comparable abuses.  Second is the inability of victims to secure relief from the judiciary, from human rights groups, from the media and from other domestic sources.  Failure to prioritize is a sure sign of bias and lack of neutrality.  Today’s U.N. and most “human rights” NGOs fail this test.  

My defense of Western democracies, and most particularly Israel, against deliberately exaggerated charges regarding human rights, led to an offer that presented me with an existential challenge to my dual identity as an American and a Jew.  In 2010, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, urged me to accept the position of Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N.  He told me that in order to serve in that capacity, I would have to become an Israeli citizen, though I could also retain my American citizenship.  I realized immediately that I could never accept the offer, despite the reality that I would have enjoyed the job immensely.  The idea of standing up against the hypocrisy and double standard of the UN appealed to me.  But it was clear to me that I am an American, not an Israeli.  For me to switch sides—even to a nation that is so close an ally to my own nation—would raise the spectre of dual loyalty that has been directed at Jews since Biblical times, when they lived as minorities in the lands of Egypt and Persia. 105 

After much discussion and arm twisting, I finally persuaded Netanyahu that if I accepted the position, it might be good for me, but it would not be good for American Jews or for Israel.  So I declined, after promising the Prime Minister that I would be available, as an international lawyer and an American, to help defend Israel against unjust charges brought by international bodies such as the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and various UN agencies.  I will also continue to criticize Israel’s human rights record when criticism based on a single universal standard is warranted by its actions.  




Conclusion:  The Second Six Million   

The sad reality is that the inversion of the human rights agenda, especially at the U.N., has needlessly cost many innocent lives.  Since the time the world promised “never again” at the end of World War II and built a structure and jurisprudence designed to fulfill that important promise, another six million innocent victims of preventable genocides have been slaughtered while the world once again stood silent.  

Since the Holocaust, the international community has turned a blind eye as genocides across the globe claimed millions of innocent lives.  Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur are just the beginning of the story.  The UN has also failed to help desperate civilians in Burundi, the former Yugoslavia, Syria, and other countries.  While ignoring the gruesome killings by the member states in its midst, the United Nations has focused its time and attention on a single country—Israel.  The numbers are staggering.  In the last eight years, Israel has garnered more than six times as many UN condemnatory resolutions than any other country in the world. 106   The General Assembly has called only ten special emergency sessions in its history, but six of them have been devoted to the Middle East’s only liberal democracy. 107   Of course Israel has its shortcomings, but it deserves to be subjected to the same scrutiny as every other state, no more and no less.  

The UN’s obsession with Israel is not necessarily the only cause of its inaction on genocide, but it is certainly a contributing factor.  Like all institutions, the United Nations has limited resources.  When it dedicates so many of those resources to criticizing Israel it decreases its ability to respond effectively to genocide.  It is important to realize that the sheer amount of time the UN spends chastising Israel in one-sided and repetitive resolutions is also time not spent on genocide.  As the NGO UN Watch notes, “Diplomats at foreign ministries or UN missions have a limited amount of time to devote to any particular UN session.  Because every proposed UN resolution is subjected to intensive review by various levels and branches of government, a direct result of the anti-Israel texts is a crippling of the UN’s ability to tackle the world’s ills.” 108   What could have been if, during the Cambodian genocide, the General Assembly passed a single resolution on the atrocities instead wasting time debating whether Zionism was racism?  How would the situation in Darfur have changed if, during its 2006-2007 sessions, the General Assembly once condemned the genocide in Sudan instead of passing 22 resolutions condemning Israel?

One might easily dismiss the UN’s obsession with Israel, if the body’s failure to stop suffering was not so serious and not so real.  The UN could have intervened more quickly and vigorously and saved millions of lives in Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Syria and numerous other places.  It is a broken institution. Until it ends its obsession with Israel, the UN cannot be fixed.  

It will remain the key perpetrator—through its actions and inactions—of the tragic inversion of human rights over the past 40 years.  

While these premeditated and carefully organized killing sprees were taking place, the United Nations fiddled on about the imperfections of the United States, Israel and other western democracies.  The real victims of this inversion have not been the western democracies that have been the focus of the U.N. condemnations.  The real victims have been those willfully ignored by the U.N., which has used its focus on Israel and other democracies as an excuse—a cover—for its malignant inaction against horrible human wrongs committed by the tyrannical regimes that control much of the UN agenda and give themselves exculpatory immunity from any UN condemnations or intervention.  “Never again” has been turned into “again and again and again.”  The label of “human rights” has been used to promote human wrongs.  Our heroes—Eleanor Roosevelt, Rene Cassin, Albert Schweitzer—should be turning over in their graves, as the shields they constructed to protect the helpless from oppression and genocide have been beaten into swords to be used by the oppressors and genocidal killers.  
I refuse to allow these human rights pretenders to hijack and invert the honorable agenda of neutral and universal human rights.  I will keep struggling until my dying day to return human rights to its proper place in the international community.  




Conclusion—Closing Argument:

Looking back at my 50 year career and forward to the laws next 50 years.


As I begin my second half century of law practice and teaching, I look back with fondness, nostalgia and a heavy dose of surprise on my interesting life and career, as I look forward to my remaining years.  Since I try to prepare my students to be lawyers over their entire careers, and since the career of a lawyer now extends to a full half century, I must always think ahead to what our legal system will look like when my current students end their careers.  

I could not have asked more or better from my first half century.  I have accomplished far more than I could ever have anticipated, especially in light of my undistinguished elementary and high school performance, and I have lived a more interesting life than I could ever have dreamed.  I have surely lived the passion of my times and I’ve been very lucky, at least so far.  (I don’t want to give myself a “kneina hura.” 109 )  Like the fictional Zelig in Woody Allen’s great film of that name, I was privileged to have been present—literally or virtually—at many of the most important legal and political events that transpired during my adult life.  For some I volunteered, for others I was solicited.  Sometimes I was a direct participant, other times an active observer and reporter.  In this “closing argument” I will try to summarize my role in the important legal and political developments in which I participated.  I will also speculate about what the future may hold for our system of laws and justice.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. viewed the role of the lawyer as a predictor of future legal decisions and trends. 110   But the Talmud cautioned that prophecy ended with the destruction of the second temple and that he/she who tries to prophecy the future is either a fool or a naïve.  Or as a contemporary sage—Yogi Berra—put it: “Prediction is very hard, especially about the future.”  I certainly agree that prognosticating the future is a daunting challenge, but lawyers and law professors must confront that challenge, because one of the most important jobs we have is to identify trends and to anticipate significant developments, I will try, therefore, with these cautions in mind, to extrapolate about what a lawyer writing an autobiography 50 years from now might look back at and write about.  

Before I summarize my past and speculate about the future, let me say a word about my present life.  I remain extremely active in every phase of my career.  Here is a summary of the week during which I wrote these words.  The week of November 13 through November 20, 2011 was fairly typical of my life during my 74th year. 111   

On Sunday morning I was picked up by limo and taken to Bedford airport where  I boarded a private 747 jet owned by Sheldon Adelson, reputed to be the richest Jew in history and among the handful of wealthiest Americans.  The son of a Boston cab driver, Adelson has accumulated billions of dollars by building and running casinos in Las Vegas, Micow and Singapore.  His jet, which was once owned by the Sultan of Brunei, is a flying mansion, equipped with a bedroom, several sitting rooms, a chef and other appertences of wealth and glamour.  I spent much of the trip conferring with Sheldon and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, who is an expert in addiction and the psychological problems associated with drug dependency.  As we were about to land, I was invited into the cockpit where I saw the Hoover Dam and other interesting sights on the approach to Las Vegas.  Upon arriving in Las Vegas I was taken to the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Educational Campus and shown around the school that they built in a suburb of Las Vegas.  Then I was picked up by Larry Ruvo, who wanted me to see the brain institute that architect Frank Grary had built in Ruvo’s father’s memory.  Ruvo credits me with helping to get this project done, after the local university ran out of money and broke its agreement with him.  I wrote a strong letter on his behalf, and the result was an arrangement with the Cleveland Clinic, one of the great medical institutions in the world.  After touring the facility, I went to the Venetian Hotel where I spoke on behalf of the Adelson Day School and was honored with a beautiful plaque made from Jerusalem stone.  The students of the school presented me with a book of drawings that the students had done in my honor representing their views of justice.  (Later that week, I passed the book around to the college students in my seminar on morality.)  At 10PM, I was taken to the airport where the Adelsons smaller jet—a gulfstream—was waiting to fly me back to New York where I arrived at 5:30AM.  

Following a few hours of sleep in my New York apartment, I was picked up by a paralegal and driven to Rikers Island where I spent the morning conferring with my client Gigi Jordan, who is accused of murder.  She had killed her autistic son and tried to kill herself after learning that her child had been repeatedly abused, both sexually and physically by his biological father, and after unsuccessfully seeking help from numerous government and social service agencies.    

After returning from Rikers Island,  I was driven to Brooklyn College, where my legal and personal papers—more than a million of them in 1600 boxes—were being opened for public viewing.  I am contributing all of my papers to my alma matter.  I made a talk about the papers and my experiences at Brooklyn College to a crowd that included my wife and sons, old friends, classmates, current and former faculty members, and current students.  It was a thrilling experience for me to go back more than half a century to the college that meant so much to me and to express my appreciation to people who so influenced my life.    

On Tuesday I appeared in New York State Supreme Court on behalf of my client Gigi Jordan and made arguments in preparation for her trial.  Following that court appearance, I boarded the Acela train and went home for a good long night’s sleep.  

On Wednesday morning I met with the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, for breakfast.  He had invited me to discuss with him a pending application of the Palestinian Authority to be recognized as a state by the International Criminal Court in order to bring charges against Israel for the war in Gaza and for building settlements in the West Bank.  We had a long and fruitful discussion.  

I then went back to the law school where I prepared for my first class of the day—a legal ethics course from 1 to 3PM.  Before class I had a short lunch in the faculty dining room where I sat with an old friend, Michael Boudin, who is a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and an adjunct member of our faculty.  The first half of the legal ethics class was devoted to discussing the difficult problem of what a lawyer should do when a client gives him physical evidence, the possession of which itself might be a crime.  Such evidence might include videos of child pornography, stolen goods and other contraband.  We considered a case where a legal aid lawyer had been told where his client buried the body of a college student he had murdered, but his murder was not known to her parents or to the police.  We also discussed the Joe Paterno case that was then in the news and that raised questions regarding obligations to report serious misconduct.  The second hour, prosecutor Ocampo made a brief appearance in the classroom, to discuss ethical problems faced by international prosecutors.  The class ended with a discussion about the scope of confidentiality and what a lawyer should do if his client claims innocence and would like to testify as to his innocence, but the lawyer firmly believes that he is guilty.  

Following that class I sent an hour preparing for my next seminar which is a class of freshman at Harvard College.  The subject is “Where Does Your Morality Come From?”, and we discussed the moral limits on spying and other forms of subterfuge directed against enemy countries.  

Straight from class I went to the Huntington Theater where I had been asked to comment on a play that was opening there.  The play was about the capture of Adolph Eichmann, and I spent about an hour on the stage speaking and responding to questions from the director and the audience about the legal issues growing out of the highly publicized capture and trial by Israel.  

Thursday was essentially my day of rest.  I spent the day writing several short articles and doing research and writing on several pending projects, including my autobiography.  Thursday night was my only night of the week at home with my wife, and we spent it watching a dumb but entertaining movie called Crazy Stupid Love.  

Friday began with my annual checkup at my doctor’s office followed by lunch with Peter Norton, director of the Norton Antivirus Software.  I met him and his wife Gwen for lunch at the Harvest, where we discussed, among other things, the use of computer viruses against the Iranian nuclear threat.  After lunch, I received an email from a lawyer representing Saif Ghadafi, who had just been apprehended by the Lybians.  He wanted me to represent Ghadafi in the International Criminal Court and to negotiate for him to be tried in the Hague rather than in Tripoli.  I asked for more information before making a decision.  I spent the rest of the afternoon working on writing projects, and then went back to the law school at 6:30PM for a Shabbat dinner sponsored by Chabad and the Jewish Law Students Association.  I am faculty advisor to both of those organizations and I gave a brief talk at the beginning of the dinner.  My wife and I then attended a concert at Sanders Theater.

At 5:30 on Saturday morning, I flew to fly to Washington DC to be a keynote speaker at an event sponsored by Iranian dissidents.  The other speakers included former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, Former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean, former Congressman Patrick Kennedy and several other former and current government officials.  I then took the train back to New York, where I was hoping to attend the Metropolitan Opera, but I was too tired and I went back to my apartment and ended the week by falling asleep at about 10PM.  My wife was proud of me for acknowledging my limitations, saying that 5 years earlier, I never would have been willing to miss anything because of being tired.  A friend, who is a psychoanalyst, has labeled my affliction “FOMS”—“fear of missing something.”  I plead guilty to that diagnosis.

Nor was this event-filled week unusual.  Two weeks later, my wife and I were off to Israel, where I received the Begin Prize” for my “contributions to the Jewish people,” and gave several lectures in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  During my visit to Israel, I flew to Paris for a talk and to the Hague on a human rights matter.  Then back to Israel for a conference and meetings with the Prime Minister and other government officials.  My granddaughter joined us in Vienna for a few days of opera and strudel, followed by a visit to Prague as guests of the U.S. Ambassador, a speech at a Czech university and the lighting of Chanukah candles at the U.S. Embassy.  

I don’t know how long I will be able to keep up this pace.  I am now teaching only in the fall semester at Harvard Law School, though I generally squeeze 4 or 5 separate courses into that one semester—one large class, two seminars and one or two reading groups.  We move to South Beach for the winter, where I write, lecture and consult on cases.  I am trying to accept fewer commitments, but I find it hard to say no to interesting offers (FOMS?).  I also cannot remain passive in the face of injustice and bigotry, which appear to be on the increase.  I still love a tough challenge and welcome a good fight.  I hate to lose and I never give up.

If past is prologue, my approach to life—living the passion of the times—will not change, but nature has its claim and physical energy inevitably abates and requires choices and priorities.  My priorities will continue to be determined by the seriousness of the wrongs that need to be challenged by rights.  


Since the theme of this book is change—change in the freedom of expression, change in the way homicides are prosecuted and defended, change in the nature of media coverage of high profile cases, change in the uses and misuses of “human rights,” change in attitudes toward race, change in the relationship between religion and government, and change in the way law is taught and learned—it is appropriate to end with changes I have experienced in my own personal and professional life over the years.  

During each of my seven decades of adult life, I have undergone significant change, beginning in my second decade, when I was a teenager about to enter college, through my eighth decade as I approach retirement from Harvard.  It is to these changes that I now turn.  


Summarizing my past:  The major changes in my life

The questions I am most often asked by others—and sometimes by myself—are about significant changes in my life and why they occurred.  Going back to my teen years, the question is why I changed, within a few short months, from a C and D student in high school to an A+ student in college and law school.  The change was dramatic and sudden—literally over the summer of 1955, between high school and college.  What happened in those two months to change me from being last, or close to last in a class of 50, to being first among the men (15 women were ahead of me) 112  in a highly competitive class of 2,000, and then first in a class of 170 even more competitive men and women (only a handful) at Yale Law School?  Was it me who changed, or was it the schools?

It was both.  I think I had begun to change during my last year in high school, but my reputation among the faculty was so firmly established and so negative, that teachers simply couldn’t see past it.  Even when I got A grades on the statewide Regents exams, the teachers gave me Cs and Ds as semester grades.  My occasionally intelligent classroom comments were taken as ‘wise ass” remarks.  And some of my teachers even thought I must have cheated whenever I got a good grade on a test.  So I doubt it was possible for me ever to shine in a high school where my favorite teacher insisted that I was “a 75 student” and would always be “a 75 student.”  (I didn’t quite live up to his expectations, graduating with an average below 75).  

Moreover, my high school was a Yeshiva—a “parochial school” and I am not a parochial person.  I did not respect most of my teachers, and the feeling was obviously mutual.  Creativity was frowned upon.  Rote memorization was rewarded.  And “respect” for “authority” was not only demanded, it was actually graded.  I got a “U” for unsatisfactory.  When I got to Brooklyn College, creativity was rewarded, rote memorization frowned upon, and respect was something to be earned, not merely accorded by the title of Rabbi.  The same kind of creative and challenging answers that got me Cs and Ds in Yeshiva earned me A’s in college and law school.

But there was more at work than a change of schools.  I changed over that summer as well.  I went to a new summer camp as an assistant counselor, where I excelled and received praise for my creativity as a song writer for “color war” and for my leadership skills.  I had always been a leader, even during my darkest days in high school, but the school rejected my leadership, fearful that other students would follow me in my heretical ways.  I always had an abundance of energy, but it was—in the views of my high school teachers—misdirected.

That summer in Camp Maple Lake, I received confirmation of my talents, and the result was heightened self confidence.  

I also met a young woman and began my first serious romantic relationship, which culminated four years later in my first marriage.  Suddenly, I was “talented,” “attractive,” and “accepted.”  It was a great send off to college.  

I also had a bit of a chip on my shoulder and an “I’ll show them” attitude toward my high school teachers, who told me I’d never amount to anything, and my principle, who persuaded Yeshiva College not to admit me.  I was motivated and roaring to go.

In college, although I succeeded beyond my wildest imaginations, I also had deep-seated doubts about whether I was really as good as my grades.  I had recurrent nightmares about failing exams and being exposed as a “phony.”  I also wondered whether Brooklyn College was easier than Yeshiva, because half the day was not devoted to religious studies.  But I didn’t let these doubts get in the way of my success.  I loved Brooklyn College; and Brooklyn College loved—and still loves—me.  (Yeshiva now loves me as well, bestowing on me an “Alumni of the Year” award and an honorary doctorate, reflecting some selective amnesia about our past unhappy relationship.)

Moving from my teen to my twenties, another question about change arises:  why did I change—again dramatically and precipitously—from a strictly observant Jew, into a mostly non-observant secular Jew.  Within a brief period of time, I transformed myself from an Orthodox Jew who put on Tfilin and davened every day and never ate anything—even a Nabisco cookie—that didn’t have the magical U, into a secular Jew who went to synagogue only a few times a year and who did not keep Kosher (except in my home, so my parents could eat there).

These changes occurred in my middle to late 20s, and did not reflect any theological epiphany, but rather a rational decision to become my own person, rather than a follower of my parents’ life style.  It would have been easy for me to remain observant.  By the time I was making the decision, my career was well established.  I had been hired by Harvard as an observant Jew, and I could have remained observant with no adverse consequences (other than some silly questions from the Dean).  Indeed, from a career perspective, there would have been a distinct advantage in remaining part of the Orthodox community.  I would have been among the most successful Orthodox lawyers and professors in the world.  Having given up Orthodoxy, I was just one among the thousands of highly successful Jewish lawyers and professors.  

I often think about what my life, and that of my family, would have been like had I remained a member of “the club” of Modern Orthodox Jews.  The “road not taken” often appears less bumpy than the road one actually traveled.  But I have no regrets.  

Many of my friends, who have remained Orthodox, do not understand my decision.  They, like me, are skeptics and agnostics, but that has not stopped them from remaining observant.  As one old friend put it:  “the older I get, the less I believe, but the more I observe.”  They love the community of Orthodox observers and want to remain part of it.  That requires complying with a set of rules—not believing a set of beliefs.  Since I am very rule abiding in my secular and professional life, following the religious rules would have been easy for me, but I chose the road less traveled, at least for my Orthodox friends.  And that has made all the difference, both for me and for my children—for better or worse.  I simply did not want to impose my parents’ rules on my children.    My parents imposed their rules on me and my brother, and I wanted my children to be free to choose a lifestyle for themselves.  Of course no one is entirely free from parental influences, and choice is always a matter of degree.  

In my thirties, I made another significant choice.  Having spent my first 5 or 6 years at Harvard as a pure scholar, writing dozens of law review articles, two case books and hundreds of lectures, I was becoming restless.  I wanted more action.  I “think therefore I am” (even if Des Carte got the order right) was not enough.  I wanted to do.  “I do, therefore I am,” is more consistent with my personality and energy level.  But I also loved teaching.  I didn’t want to stop being a professor.  

I also have always hated to choose among good things.  My choice has always been to do everything—not to miss anything.  (“FOMS” again!  I am terminal!)  I never want to miss anything.  My wife always reminds me of the great Yiddish expression:  “With one Tuchis (rear end) you cannot dance at two weddings.”  Maybe not, but there’s no harm in trying.  And why only two, if there are three.  (My son Elon, a filmmaker, recently made a clever, short cartoon video, showing me breaking the Martha’s Vineyard record by attending five parties in one night!)

And so, consistent with my lifelong aversion to choosing, I chose not to choose.  I decided to remain a professor while also arguing cases and becoming deeply involved in causes.  

The immediate precipitator of this change did not come from within me.  It came from a tragedy that struck my 10 year old son Elon, who was diagnosed with brain cancer.  I dropped everything I was doing and focused all my energy on getting him the best surgical and oncological care in the world.  Following successful surgery at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, he had radiation therapy at Stanford Medical Center in California.  Then it was time to wait.  Waiting—not doing—is difficult for me.  I simply couldn’t concentrate on long term scholarly projects that had no deadlines.  My mind wandered to my son and I could get no work done.  I had to put on hold a major scholarly book project on the preventive state.  

I decided that what I needed was short term projects with deadlines that required me to complete the work on schedule.  Appellate cases fit the bill perfectly, and I began to take on criminal appeals.  

When Elon was diagnosed, I had no money.  My salary was meager and I had no outside income.  I had to borrow money from Judge Bazelon to assure Elon the best care.  I vowed that I would never again put my family in that position and I decided to try to earn additional income from cases.  I took half my cases on a pro bono basis, but the other half earned me a nice outside income, which I invested cautiously.  I remember vividly charging my first legal fee:  $35 an hour.  I couldn’t believe anyone would be willing to pay me so much—almost 50 times as much as the 75 cents an hour I had earned as a babysitter and Bar Mitzvah tutor!  Within a few years it was $75 an hour, then a hundred.  My goal was to be certain that if Elon experienced a recurrence, I would have enough money to assure the best treatment without having to borrow.  Fortunately, Elon has been fine, but the years go by awfully slowly when you have a child at risk for recurrence.

Once having dipped my toe in the water of practice, I wouldn’t stop.  I loved the challenge of the courtroom and took to it quite naturally.  I’ve never looked back.  Practice has made me a better teacher, and teaching has made me a better practitioner.  

In my 40s, I made another career change.  I stopped writing law review articles and started to write books about law for a general audience.  My first book, written in my early 40s, was The Best Defense, which became a national best seller and is still in print.  It has been followed by 28 additional books, six of which became best sellers.  My books have been translated into a dozen languages, and well over a million of them have been sold throughout the world.  One of them, Chutzpah, was the number one best seller on The New York Times and other lists.  My career as a popular writer of non-fiction and fiction has been gratifying, especially when readers tell me that my books have influenced their thinking and their lives.  I think of my book writing as part of my job as a teacher, both to my Harvard law students and to my readers.  

In my 40s, I also became a regular presence on national television, explaining the law and advocating civil liberties positions.  I appeared frequently with Ted Koppel, Larry King, Katie Couric and other widely watched shows.  As a result, I became something of a public figure (for better or worse.)  I also met my second wife, Carolyn Cohen, and began to live a more stable and rewarding home life.

In my 50s, my life changed again.  Because of my success as a lawyer, my media visibility and my books, I began to attract world famous people as clients.  The nature of my practice changed considerably, and although I still took half of my cases without fee, the fees for my paying cases went up dramatically, and for the first time in my life I was relatively wealthy.  My wife and I—who by this time had a daughter named Ella—bought a beautiful home in Cambridge and a vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard.  We began to collect art and to open our home to students and charity events.  Shortly thereafter, my son Jamin married Barbara and had two children, Lori and Lyle, making me a relatively young grandfather.  

Clients, including several billionaires, were flocking to me and I had my choice of cases.  I tried to strike a balance among the cases I took, but the media focused only on my rich and famous clients.  Suddenly I was a celebrity lawyer.  I hated that designation, and it didn’t accurately reflect my day-to-day work, but it stuck and my obituary will probably use the term, no matter when it is published.

My next career change took place in my 60s, when I began to devote considerable time and energy to the defense of Israel against efforts to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state.  As I entered my seventh decade and looked back on my life’s work, I saw most trends moving in a positive direction:  freedom of expression, though never secure, was expanding; science was playing more of a role in solving homicides that ever before, though the courts were not keeping pace with technological developments; racial, gender, religious and even sexual orientation, equality, though far from complete, was much closer to reality than when I was growing up.  There was, however, one important issue that was moving in the wrong direction:  the campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel—being conducted by the strangest of bedfellows, the hard ideological left and the hard Islamic right—was crossing dangerous lines.  Israel’s imperfections (and what nation is anything but imperfect) was becoming the newest excuse for legitimizing the oldest of bigotries.  The line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism—a line Martin Luther King warned about in a speech at Harvard shortly before his death—was being crossed.  For the first time in my adult life, I was seeing an increase in the hatred of Jews.

Moreover, the fervor in the hatred of Israel could not be explained in rational, policy terms.  Israel, the “Jew Among Nations,” was being treated by many on the hard left and on the Islamic right, in the way the Jewish people had been treated for millennia.  This change took me by surprise.

In the conclusion to my 1991 book, Chutzpah, I predicted the end of mainstream, top-down anti-Semitism in America, and its replacement by anti-Zionism.  I also predicted “a sharp decline in support for Israel among college and university students,” who will be “tomorrow’s leaders.”  I should have, but did not anticipate that the new anti-Zionism would morph into anti-Semitism, at least for some.  I should have because the hatred of Israel by the hard left and the Islamic right was so irrational, so off the charts, so extreme, that it could be explained only by a hatred for Israel’s Jewishness.  A confrontation I experienced in 2004 was all too typical:  

It took place in front of Faneuil Hall, the birthplace of American independence and liberty. I was receiving a justice award and delivering a talk from the podium of that historic hall on civil liberties in the age of terrorism. When I left, award in hand, I was accosted by a group of screaming, angry young men and women carrying virulently anti-Israel signs. The sign carriers were shouting epithets at me that crossed the line from civility to bigotry. “Dershowitz and Hitler, just the same, the only difference is the name.” The sin that, in the opinion of the screamers, warranted this comparison between me and the man who murdered dozens of my family members was my support for Israel.
It was irrelevant to these chanters that I also support a Palestinian state, the end of the Israeli occupation, and the dismantling of most of the settlements. The protestors also shouted, “Dershowitz and Gibbels [sic], just the same, the only difference is the name”—not even knowing how to pronounce the name of the anti-Semitic Nazi butcher.

One sign carrier shouted that Jews who support Israel are worse than Nazis. Another demanded that I be tortured and killed. It was not only their words; it was the hatred in their eyes. If a dozen Boston police had not been protecting me, I have little doubt I would have been physically attacked. The protestors’ eyes were ablaze with fanatical zeal.

The feminist writer Phyllis Chesler aptly describes the hatred some young people often direct against Israel and supporters of the Jewish state as “eroticized.”  That is what I saw: passionate hatred, ecstatic hatred, orgasmic hatred. It was beyond mere differences of opinion.

When I looked into their faces, I could imagine young Nazis in the 1930s in Hitler’s Germany. They had no doubt that they were right and that I was pure evil for my support of the Jewish state, despite my public disagreement with some of Israel’s policies and despite my support for Palestinian statehood.

There was no place for nuance here. It was black and white, good versus evil, and any Jew who supported Israel was pure evil, deserving of torture, violence, and whatever fate Hitler and Goebbels deserved.

To be sure, these protestors’ verbal attack on me was constitutionally protected speech, just as the Nazi march through Skokie was constitutionally protected speech. But the shouting was plainly calculated to intimidate. An aura of violence was in the air, and had the police not been there, I would not have been able to express any views counter to theirs.

As it turned out, I was not able to express my opinions anyway, even in response to their outrageous mischaracterization of my viewpoint or their comparisons of me to the most evil men in the world. When I turned to answer one of the bigoted chants, as I always do in these situations, the police officer in charge gently but firmly insisted that I walk directly to my car and not engage them. It was an order, reasonably calculated to assure my safety, and it was right.

The officer climbed into my car with me and only got out a few blocks away, when we were beyond the range of violence. The intimidation had succeeded. I had been silenced, and the false and horrible message had gone unanswered in the plaza near Faneuil Hall.



I have experienced similar hatred around the world:  in California, Toronto, Trondheim, Cape town, London and Paris.  I needed police protection—sometimes with shields and bulletproof vests—when I spoke about Israel.  I never saw anything like this hatred directed at the South African Apartheid regime in the 1970s and 1980s.  Even during the worst days of McCarthyism, there was nothing like this even directed at Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China.  And there was nothing like this directed at the German Nazi regime or the Italian Fascist regime in the 1930s.

The hatred directed at Israel—calling it worse than Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa—is sui genesis.  It is unprecedented on campuses around the world, and it was inevitable that it would cross the line into old fashioned and crude anti-Semitism, as it has done on many campuses and in many lecture halls.

I could not remain silent in the face of this dangerous phenomenon.  I decided therefore to prioritize my legal and human rights work in defense of Israel and the Jewish community as long as this threat persisted.  

I had wanted to write a book called The Case For Peace, in which I criticized both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict for not doing enough to bring about a compromise peace.  Instead, I decided to write The Case For Israel, in order to provide students with a factual basis for responding to the untruths that are rampant on campuses.  The book became an instant best seller, both on campuses and around the world, where it was published in many languages.  It helped change the terms of the debate on many campuses and it changed the minds of many people.  One example is particularly gratifying.  An Arab man named Kassim Hafeez wrote an article in October of 2011 entitled From Anti-Semite to Zionist.  In it, he described his journey as follows:

     “Growing up in a Muslim community in the UK I was exposed to materials condemning Israel, painting Jews as usurpers and murderers. My views were reinforced when I attended Nakba Day rallies where speakers predicted Israel's demise.

     My hate for Israel and for the Jews was fuelled by images of death and destruction, set to the backdrop of Arabic melodies about Jihad and speeches of Hizbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah or Osama Bin Laden.

     There was also constant, casual antisemitism around me. My father would boast of how Adolf Hitler was a hero, his only failing being that he didn't kill enough Jews. 

     What changed? In Waterstones one day I found myself in the Israel and Palestine section. To this day I don't know why I actually pulled it off the shelf, but I picked up a copy of Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel.

     In my world view the Jews and the Americans controlled the media, so after a brief look at the back, I scoffed thinking "vile Zionist propaganda".

     But I decided to buy it, eagerly awaiting the chance to deconstruct it so I could show why Israel had no case and claim my findings as a personal victory for the Palestinian cause.
     As I read Dershowitz's systematic deconstruction of the lies I had been told, I felt a real crisis of conscience. I couldn't disprove his arguments or find facts to respond to them with. I didn't know what to believe. I'd blindly followed for so long, yet here I was questioning whether I had been wrong?

     I decided to visit Israel to find the truth. I was confronted by synagogues, mosques and churches, by Jews and Arabs living together, by minorities playing huge parts in all areas of Israeli life, from the military to the judiciary. It was shocking and eye-opening. This wasn't the evil Zionist Israel that I had been told about.

     After much soul searching, I knew what I had once believed was wrong. I had to stand with Israel, with this tiny nation, free, democratic, making huge strides in medicine, research and development, yet the victim of the same lies and hatred that nearly consumed me.


Not all people were so positively influenced, a woman in England asked the manager of a large book store for a copy of The Case For Israel.  He responded, “there is no case for Israel.”

I have devoted much of my 7th decade to the defense of Israel (while continuing to criticize many of its policies, especially regarding settlements.)  This has earned me the title of “the Jewish State’s lead attorney in the court of public opinion” and “America’s most public Jewish defender.”  It has also earned me the title of “Ziofascist,” “Jewish Nazi,” “tool of the Likud,” and “Israel Firster.”  

It is these latter titles that have brought about the most recent change in my life during my 8th decade.  Until recently, I was always known as a liberal Democrat aligned politically with the likes of Senator Ted Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Justices Arthur Goldberg and William Brennan, the Reverend Martin Luther King, and Judge David Bazelon.  The organization with which I have been most closely associated has been the American Civil Liberties Union, on whose national and local boards I have served.  The causes with which I have been most often associated were freedom of speech; opposition to the death penalty; due process for criminal suspects and defendants; the separation of church and state; racial, gender, religious, wealth and sexual orientation equality; and political accountability . Indeed, when I have been considered for judgeships and other government positions requiring Senate confirmation, I was generally regarded as “too liberal” to be confirmed.  

Today, my views on all of the above subjects have remained essentially the same, but because of my support, critical as it may be, for Israel, I am now widely regarded as a “conservative,” a “right winger,” a “sell out,” even a fascist.  Many college and university students have no idea of my views on the core issues that separate liberals from conservatives (inexact as those categories are).  All they know is that is that I defend Israel, and that is enough for them to brand me as “politically incorrect” and worse.  This is the way MJ Rosenberg, an anti-Israel blogger active in Media Matters, a Democratic think tank, absurdly put it:  

     “Dershowitz is not a Democrat.  The only issue he cares about—and the only issue he ever spouts off about—is Israel.  Unlike most Americans, [say 99%], Dershowitz has no particular opinion on any issue that does not relate to Israel.”

His obsession over Israel’s imperfections has blinded him, and other of his ilk, to the fact that the vast majority of my books, op eds, cases and causes relate to civil liberties, criminal and constitutional law.  

This last change is not one that I have brought about by changing my views or actions, as were the earlier changes.  I have done nothing different.  It is the world around me that has changed with regard to Israel, and attitudes toward me have changed because of this.  I will continue to live by my principles.  I’m probably too old and too set in my ways to change even if I wanted to, which I don’t.  I will not adapt my principles to changing times and attitudes, when I believe that these changing attitudes are wrong and bigoted.  But I must recognize that the perception of me by many others is changing.  

After I helped win the O.J. Simpson case, I thought that it would be that aspect of my career that would  be the focus of my obituary.  Now I think it will also be Israel.  Since I’m never satisfied unless I get the last word, I penned the following letter to the editor to be sent following my death:

     Dear editor:

     I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate some of the kind words written about me in your obituary, but I had a policy throughout my life of setting the record straight with regard to things written about me, and I see no reason to allow my untimely death to change that.  Your understandable emphasis on my high profile cases distorts my record by downplaying the numerous pro bono cases I handled on behalf of obscure and indigent clients.  I made it a policy throughout my life to devote at least half of my professional time to nonpaying cases and causes.

     One such cause was the defense of Israel from unfair attacks, but I was not an uncritical advocate for the Jewish state.  To the contrary, I was critical when criticism was warranted, as with regard to Israel’s settlement policy.  I supported Israel not despite my liberalism, but because of it—and because I have always defended just causes against unjust attacks.  

     I tried to live my life based on principles and consistency.  There were not always understood by those who disagreed with where my principles sometimes took me and who they led me to represent.  That is why I have made it a policy to correct the record.  I admit that I have always tried to get the last word.  Hence this posthumous letter to the editor which I promise is my last word.

     Alan Dershowitz
     From I don’t know where  

I hope this posthumous letter to the editor isn’t published for a while, but I suspect it will be relevant whenever my obituary appears.  That’s ok—as long as I get the last word!  


APPENDIX – VIGNETTES

Justice Harlen




Henry Kissinger




Opera Tickets




Cardinal Glemp




Israel Philharmonic



Nevins





Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Among the public figures I have counseled is Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  I had met Bibi when he was a student in Cambridge in the early 1970’s.  We got to know each other when he served in New York as Israel’s representative to the United Nations.  He has been to our home for dinner and we have been at his.  Over the years, he has sought my advice on legal and governmental matters, but not on Israeli domestic politics, which he knows I stay out of.  

Shortly after he first became Prime Minister, he invited me to his office on a Friday afternoon.  

My wife, our daughter and I stood outside of the King David Hotel trying to hail a cab, but all the cab drivers were heading home for the weekend.  It looked like we might be late for our appointment with the Prime Minister.  Suddenly a car pulled up.  It was the mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, whom I knew.  He rolled down his window and shouted, “Alan, you’ll never get a cab on a Friday afternoon.  Where do you need to go?”  I told him and he willingly agreed to drive us there.  As I began to get into his car, a cab driver pulled over and said, “I’ll take them.”  Olmert replied, “No, no, it’ll be my pleasure.”  The cab driver pulled his car in front of Olmert’s, blocking it and shouting, “I don’t try to run Jerusalem, why are you trying to be a cab driver?  Stop taking business from me.”  Only in Jerusalem!  I paid the cab driver what his fare would’ve been and took the ride with the mayor.  

When I got to the Prime Minister’s office, Bibi spent a few minutes with us and then invited me to his private office for a confidential meeting.  He explained that this was one of the most secure locations in the world and that anything I told him would never leave the room.  He then said, “There’s been something I have been waiting to ask you.”  I expected him to ask my advice on some critical security or political issue, as he had in the past.  I said, “Sure, ask me anything.”  He put his arm around me and whispered in my ear, “So, did O.J. do it?”  I was taken aback but I quickly responded, “So, Mr. Prime Minister, does Israel have nuclear weapons?”  Bibi looked at me sternly and said, “You know I can’t answer that question.”  I looked back at him and said, “Aha!”  Bibi understood and we both laughed.

Over the years I have advised Netanyahu on a variety of issues during his tenure as Prime Minister and between his terms.  I do not share all of his political and diplomatic views, and he knows that, but he seems to value my judgment, as do several other Israeli political leaders to the left of him.  They know I care deeply about Israel and will always give them my unbiased views.  

Recently, Netanyahu made the following statement during a nationally-televised conference in Israel:  

     “First off, I would like to congratulate the Globes Conference for its foresight in inviting Alan Dershowitz and I would like to say to Alan.  Israel has no greater champion and the truth has no greater defender than Alan Dershowitz.”

I was obviously flattered by his comment.  Several hours later, I received a call from President Obama, who had apparently learned of Netanyahu’s words.  He said he valued my views because “you’ve always been straight with me over the years that we’ve known each other.”  He asked me about the situation in Israel and eventually about Iran, and invited me to the White House for lunch to continue our discussion.  


_________________

Getting back to my invitation to President Clinton to attend Rosh Hashanah services, this was not the first such invitation I had extended to a head of state.  In 1990, I had invited Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to join me at Rosh Hashanah services in Moscow, where I had been invited to the Kremlin to speak at a conference on law and bilateral economic relations in September of 1990.  It was a time of transition, but the Soviet Union was still in existence and Gorbachev was still running it.  

Gorbachev attended the closing dinner, having just come from an emotional meeting of the Supreme Soviet at which he had sought emergency powers to confront the ongoing crisis.  I introduced myself to him as he was eating dinner and we had a lengthy conversation in which I asked him to come with me to the synagogue and denounce anti-Semitism as Pope Paul had done when he appeared at the Rome Synagogue and deplored “the hatred, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and by anyone.”  

Gorbachev smiled and asked me rhetorically, “Are you here to help bring down my government ?”  He said he could not go to the synagogue but he promised me that he would condemn anti-Semitism.  Shortly thereafter, he announced that “the Democratic Russian public denounces anti-Semitism and will do everything in its power to uproot the phenomenon from our society.”  

In 2008, I met Gorbachev again.  This time, under the most unusual of circumstances.  He was in Israel at the invitation of President Shimon Peres to help celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday.  I was there for the same reason.  I had just appeared on a panel with Vaclav Havel and with Natan Sharansky, both of whom who had been imprisoned by Communist regimes, and both of whose cases I had worked on as a defense attorney.  After the completion of the panel, in a remarkable turn of fate, the four of us ended up in the same elevator.  (Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke:  Gorbachev, Havel, Sharansky and Dershowitz meet in an elevator in Jerusalem…)  Gorbachev recognized the three of us and turning to me said, “You’re the big shot lawyer for all the dissidents.”  I extended my hand to him and reminded him of our meeting in Moscow.  He then turned to Havel and Sharansky and said, “He may be a good lawyer but it was I who got you out of prison.”  I smiled and replied, “It’s always more important to have a good judge than a good lawyer.”  Sharanky turned to Gorbachev and said, “Why didn’t you let us out sooner?” to which Gorbachev responded, “You overrate my power.”  We all had a good laugh.  


Brooke Shields and her mother Teri 


When Brooke Shields was 10 years old, her ambitious mother Teri signed a contract with an equally ambitious photographer to photograph Brooke naked, taking a bath.  Brooke was paid $450 for the photo sessions by Playboy Press, and her mother signed a release giving the photographer the unlimited right to publish the photographs anywhere and at any time.  

Seven years later, as Brooke was about the enter Princeton as a freshman, the photographer decided to exploit her fame by producing a calendar featuring naked pictures of the 10 year old.  Brooke was upset that any such calendar would circulate among her fellow students at Princeton and would cause her great embarrassment.

She hired a former student of mine to try to negotiate with the photographer to buy back the rights, and if that failed, to try to prevent publication of the photographs.  My former student sought my advice on the matter.  I told him it would be an uphill fight to try to enjoin the publication of the pictures, because they were not obscene and because prior restraint is always disfavored by the law.  

This was another example, this time of a celebrity mother, making a short term judgment to allow her young daughter to pose naked, without considering the longer term implications on her welfare.  The only theory on which I thought she could possibly succeed was that Brooke’s mother had no right to surrender her daughter’s privacy and that Brooke, now approaching adulthood, should have control over her own image.  

Ultimately the court ruled, in a bizarre opinion, that Brooke had essentially waived her right to privacy by allowing the photographs to be published earlier, and by pursuing a career in which she has relied on her sexuality for her success.  The court put it this way:  

     “Much of plaintiff's recent commercial activity upon which her fame is based has been far more sexually suggestive than the photographs which have been shown to the court. These photographs are not sexually suggestive, provocative or pornographic; they do not suggest promiscuity.  They are photos of a prepubescent girl in innocent poses at her bath. In contrast, defense counsel have submitted numerous samples of sex-oriented publicity concerning plaintiff. Particularly notable is her widely televised sexually suggestive advertisement for blue jeans. Recent film appearances have been sexually provocative (e.g., “The Blue Lagoon”, “Endless Love”.). Plaintiff's claim of harm is thus undermined to a substantial extent by the development of her career projecting a sexually provocative image.


This reasoning fails to distinguish between a 17 year old and a 10 year old.  The earlier photographs were taken of a 10 year old kid, whose mother controlled what she would do.  Her recent appearances were made by a near-adult and were far more within her own control.  The court simply ignored the argument by the 10 year old should not be bound by foolish decisions made by an ambitious mother when Brooke was too young to say no.  

I believe that if this case were to come before a court today, in light of the new sensitivity toward child exploitation, the case would have been cited in favor of Brooke Shields.  Eventually the case was settled and the calendar wasn’t distributed to Brooke’s Princeton classmates.  Brooke Shields went on to a successful career as a multi-dimensional performer.  



Marlon Brando

I have a small apartment in New York, which my wife and I use for weekend trips to the Opera and other Manhattan events.  On this particular weekend, I lent it out to my cousin and doctor, Harold Solomon.  He called me from the apartment and said that while he was out, a message was left on the machine from a guy who did a pretty good imitation of Marlon Brando.  He told me that the caller, spoofing the great actor, had criticized my diction on the outgoing message.  I called my machine and immediately realized that it was Marlon Brando.  I called him back and he asked me if I would help get his son Christian, who was charged with having shot and killed his half sister’s lover, out of jail.  

Christian Brando was originally charged with murder, after he shot his half sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend.  He claimed that Cheyenne had told him that the boyfriend, Dag Drollet, had physically abused her.  Christian apparently confronted Drollet.  Christian claimed that they struggled over his gun and that he never intended to kill him.  The prosecution claimed that it was a cold-blooded, premeditated murder fueled by Christian’s drunken state.  

Marlon Brando asked me to work with Robert Shapiro to get his son out of prison as soon as possible.  Brando blamed himself for his family problems and wanted to help as much as he could.  He said he heard that I “could perform miracles” and he wanted my input.  I tried to disabuse him of the notion that I could free his son immediately but promised to work as hard as I could with Shapiro.  Eventually a plea bargain was struck and Christian pleaded guilty to manslaughter.  He was released from prison after serving only five years, much to the chagrin of many in the public and the media.  The story did not, however, have a happy ending.  Cheyenne committed suicide in 1995 at age 25 and Christian died of pneumonia in 2008 at age 49.  

Marlon Brando, who stage and screen presence was electric, was kind of boring and predictable when I met him.  He had stereotypically “Hollywood” political views, conventional ideas and no sense of humor.  He was accustomed to “yes men” agreeing with his every idea and didn’t take criticism or disagreement easily.  He loved his children but didn’t seem to have any notion of how to relate to them.  All in all he struck me as a rather pathetic figure, totally at odds with his public persona.  


Turning down Bobby Fisher

One celebrity whose case I turned down was the world champion of chess, Bobby Fisher.  He was training for his world championship match at the Catskill Mountain Resort at Ground.., where my family and I were spending Passover.  I received a note from Fisher asking me to meet with him.  At the time he hadn’t yet turned the corner into the anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism that characterized his later years.  He was known then as a somewhat eccentric and brilliant chess player.  Since he grew up in Brooklyn and went to high school right next to the Yeshiva I attended, I was anxious to meet him.  He asked me to come to the bowling alley where he was strengthening his arms and hands.

When I got there he told me that he had heard that I was a good lawyer and that I was in the hotel and he wanted to ask my legal advice about an issue relating to whether he could copyright or trademark his chess moves.  It was an intriguing question, and one that I would have been happy to research.  

I told him that I would be willing to provide a legal memorandum to him on the subject, and immediately asked me whether I would be willing to do it without charge to him.  I was certainly prepared to do that, but since my 10 year old son Elon was then learning how to play chess, I thought I would ask him for something in return.  With a smile I said, “sure, I will provide you legal advice for free, if you would do me the favor of playing one quick chess match with my son Elon, and a second favor or not beating him in four moves (the minimum necessary for checkmate) but would extend it to six or seven moves.”  He looked at me sternly and said, “I’m not a circus performer.  I don’t perform for children.  How dare you ask me.”  

I was shocked by his disproportionately response to my somewhat flippant request for a favor for my son.  I looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’m not a circus performer either.  I don’t perform free legal services for ingrates who refuse to do a small favor for a young child whose learning how to play chess. Find another lawyer and pay him the going rate.”  He walked away.  I walked away and I never saw him again.  

I don’t know whether the issue he wanted to raise has ever been definitively resolved, but I do know that I saw an early manifestation of what ultimately became Bobby Fisher’s downfall. 




Malcolm X at Harvard

Just weeks after I began teaching at Harvard, students from the Harvard Law Forum asked me if I would introduce the controversial Malcolm X.  He had been invited to speak at the forum but no senior faculty member would agree to introduce him, and the rules of the university required that a faculty member perform this function.  I readily agreed, despite my disagreement with many of Malcolm X’s views, particularly with regard to the Middle East.  He had just returned from a trip to Mecca and Medina, where he embraced Islam and began to say some pretty awful things about Israel, Zionists and Jews.  But believing as I do in free speech, I agreed to facilitate his appearance, as long as the law forum did not limit what I could say in my introduction.  They agreed.  

I was polite in my introduction but somewhat critical.  [find my introduction in the book Malcolm X Speaks at Harvard edited by Archie Epps]  

As I introduced him I noticed that he was wearing what appeared to be a large camera case slung over his shoulder and covering his chest.  I later learned that it contained a gun, and that the reason no other faculty member would agree to introduce him, and share the stage with him, was as much because his life was under constant threat, as because of his controversial views.  

The event went smoothly.  First Archie Epps—a distinguished African American Harvard Dean—made some introductory comments in which he sharply distanced himself from the views of Malcolm X.  Then I made my somewhat more critical introduction.  Malcolm X then proceeded to regal the crowd with his extreme views on black liberation.  

Following the speech, we all went to dinner at a local restaurant.  I was seated next to Malcolm X and we spent most of the dinner arguing about the Middle East.  During the course of the dinner I asked him if he would be willing to travel to Israel.  He said he was not, since he regarded it as occupied Muslim land, but he added, “I would be much safer in Israel than in any of the Arab countries I visited, and safer than I am here in the United States.”  Within several months of making that comment, Malcolm X was gunned down in Harlem.

Several years after Malcolm X was murdered, Dean Archie Epps edited a book entitled “Malcolm X speaks at Harvard.”  He included the speech that I introduced as well my critical introduction.  But he excluded his own critical introduction.  By this time, Malcolm X had become somewhat a martyr within the black community, and my critical views seemed somewhat out of place in the book so I called Dean Epps and asked him why he decided to include my critical comments but not his own.  He responded, “That’s the advantage of being the editor. You decide what stays in and what goes out.”





Martha Stewart

I knew Martha Stewart in law school.  Her then husband was my classmate.  When she got in trouble, she called me and we discussed her situation.  She had been indicted for acts she was accused of committing after she retained top flight lawyers.  She then hired another top flight lawyer, Robert Murcalo, to represent her.  He did a terrible job and she was convicted.  She went to jail largely as the result of the lawyers she had picked.  By the time she called me, it was too late to do very much.  She picked excellent lawyers for her appeal and I consulted with them, but the court affirmed her conviction and she went off to serve her relatively short prison sentence.  She has now rebounded and her conviction will be a small footnote in her otherwise successful and productive life.  


Ronald Reagan slept on my shoulder

I was flying back from Washington, DC on Eastern Airlines.  I was seated in first class and the aisle seat next to me was empty.  A minute before the door closed, Ronald Regan was escorted onto the plane and seated next to me.  He had just completed his terms as governor of CA and had not yet announced his candidacy for President of the US.  His security people seated him and then left him to fly alone to Boston where he was to be met by other security people.  

As soon as he sat down, he introduced himself and asked me if I lived in Boston.  I introduced myself and told him yes.  He then asked me if I was a friend of Senator Ted Kennedy.  I told him I was.  He said, “great American.  Nice man.”  

We spent the next 15 minutes or so chatting about Boston politics.  I told him I knew Jerry Brown from law school and he said, “Great American.”  We continued the talk until the plane reached its flying altitude.  At that point, practically in mid sentence, Regan simply dozed off and his head landed on my shoulder, where it remained for the rest of the trip.  When the pilot announced that we were approaching Boston, Regan immediately woke up and continued the conversation as if there had been no interruption.  He offered me a ride downtown, to the hotel where he was speaking, but I told him I had my car at the airport.  He was absolutely charming, but I had absolutely no thought that he might someday become the President of the United States.  


Kevin Costner



Marsha Clark without underwear

Marsha Clark may not have been the most sophisticated prosecutor I ever encountered, but she certainly was among the most resourceful, employing everything she had to her advantage.  In the OJ Simpson case, Johnny Cochran was about to make his closing argument.  As we walked to the lecturn, Marsha Clark went over to him and whispered, “when you’re up there, I want you think of only one thing:  I’m not wearing any underwear.”  When Johnny Cochran told me this story, I was skeptical.  So I called Marsha Clark and asked her.  She told me, “Absolutely true.”  I asked, “which part of it was true:  the fact that you told him you weren’t wearing any underwear or that you weren’t, in fact, wearing any underwear?”  She replied, “That’s one thing you’ll never know.”  

The case of the Vibrating Beeper

A guy I knew from Yeshiva called me one day to tell me that his son, a medical school graduate who was interning at a New York hospital, had just been suspended for masturbating in front of a nurse.  His residency and medical career were in danger.  The young man was engaged to a wonderful woman and my friend knew he could not have been guilty of this offense.  When I met with him he explained that his fiancé would pick him up from work with her car after she completed work.  She was to signal him when she was outside by calling his beeper.  Because the hospital forbade use of the beeper for private calls, the young doctor always put it in his pocket on vibrate.  One day when he was talking to a nurse, the beeper went off in his pocket.  Fearful that she would see it, he fumbled around in his pocket to find the off switch.  She misunderstood his actions and that of the vibrating beeper for masturbation.  

I told him that he had to tell the truth, because the offense of using his beeper improperly was trivial compared to the offense with which he was charged.  He agreed.  He asked me to speak to his supervisor.  I borrowed his beeper, put it in my pocket and went in to speak to the supervisor.  At a prearranged moment, he phoned the beeper and it began to vibrate in my pocket.  The supervisor saw my vibrating pocket.  I quickly retrieve d the beeper and the case was over. Demonstrative evidence always works better than oral testimony.  


Robert Downey, Jr.


Pierre Trudeau

When the Canadian government was confronted with terrorism from some people seeking independence for Quebec, Prime Minister Trudeau invoked an emergency law called “The War Measures Act” that authorized arrests without trial of dangerous people.  The Prime Minister then convened a conference of Canadian experts to advise him about the implementation of this extraordinary law.  We met at an isolated resort on a frozen lake.  Among those in attendance were the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of Canada, Professors Irwin Cotler, and I (as the one non-Canadian)

Moshe Katsav

President Moshe Katsav of Israel asked me to come to see him during the last year of his presidency.  He asked me for advice—political and media advice rather than legal, since I am not an expert on Israeli law—about the sexual harassment charges he was then facing.  He told me that he had been offered a deal by the prosecutor under which he would plead guilty to an harassment charge, and the prosecutor would not bring rape charges.  I do not feel comfortable disclosing precisely the advice I gave him, even though it wasn’t legal advice and even though I was never part of his legal team.  All I can say is that if he had followed my advice, I don’t think he would be in prison today.  


Dinner with President and Mrs. Ford

Several years before Gerald Ford died, he and his wife invited me to deliver a lecture in Palm Springs where they were living.  They invited my son and me to join them for dinner before the lecture.  We schmoozed about our common experiences at Yale Law School, our different party affiliations, and our mutual love for football and other sports.  Then he asked me a question:  “What do you think of Justice John Paul Stevens?”  I responded that I thought he was one of the greatest justices in modern history, that he brought real common sense to the job of judging, that he was non-ideological and that he was a really nice man.  He deemed and said, “appointing him was the second most important decision of my presidency.”  I asked him what the first most important decision was.  He said,  “The one that cost me reelection—the pardon of President Nixon.”  

Rabin



My only “crime”

I can think of only one crime that I may have committed in my life, and I know that if I had been tried for it, I would not only have been acquitted, but the jurors would have cheered me.

It occurred after my son, Elon, had serious brain surgery for a life threatening illness.  He was 10 years old and the bravest person I ever met.  Shortly after the surgery, he went back to work selling newspapers in the subway station at Harvard Square.  One day two young hoodlums from Somerville beat him up, broke his tooth and stole the few dollars he had earned.  A local policeman, Frank Burns, who knew Harvard Square like the back of his hand, immediately recognized the MO of the thugs and arrested the two youths (“youts”—remember My Cousin Vinny!)  

Several days later, the two thugs came back to Harvard Square, robbed my son again and told him that unless he withdrew his complaint, they would throw him in front of a moving train.  He called me and I ran to the square, where I saw the two thugs taking a victory lap.  I approached them and I said I have only two words to say to you.  I then mentioned the name of a man on whose case I was then consulting.  Although the charge against him involved marijuana trafficking, the man himself was known to be a notorious hit man for one of Boston’s most violent gangs.  I told the two youths that if they ever came near my son again, I would tell my client and that my client would do anything for me.  The two thugs got down on their hands and knees and pleaded with me not to tell my client what they had done.  They never came back.  I never told my client, indeed I had never met my client, and still haven’t.  I was just consulting with another lawyer on a constitutional issue related to the case.  But simply mentioning his name terrorized the thugs.  I’m not sure whether what I did was a crime.  But I would do it again if anyone ever threatened any of my children.


Jumping a mugger

When I was a young lawyer, I frequently took my kids to Boston Bruin hockey games, which were rough and tumble affairs, both on the ice and in the stands.  At one game, a great lawyer with whom I have sometimes worked, Joe Oteri was sitting a row in front of me with his teenage daughter.  During a break between period, Joe went out for a beer.  An older teenage guy began to aggressively flirt with Joe’s daughter.  When Joe saw him touching his daughter in an unwelcome way, he grabbed him.  Unbeknownst to Joe, the guy’s friend was standing in back of him and raised his hand above his head about to hit Joe from behind.  As soon as I saw this, I leaped over the seats and grabbed the guy from behind, preventing him from hitting Joe.  The security came and quickly separated us.  When Joe began to tell this story to anyone who would listen, it kept getting better and better.  The final version had me beating up the two maulers and saving his daughter’s life.  Although the reality is that my heroism was quite limited and totally instinctive, Joe has never forgotten what I did and has always shown his appreciation.  



How a frozen tongue saved me

There used to be a deli in New York that named sandwiches after famous people.  My sandwich was “tongue on rye,” which I took as flattering, especially since some of my friends had turkey or ham in their named sandwiches.  Tongue was not only appropriate because I talk a lot but also because a tongue once helped me beat off a would-be mugger.  I was coming from my parent’s house in Brooklyn and heading back to school in New Haven on the New York subway.  My mother, as usual, gave me some food to take back to school.  It was a solidly frozen, humungous tongue.  I didn’t really want to take it, in part because it was so cumbersome to carry in the plastic bag in which my mother had placed it.  As I got off the subway and approached the railroad station, a guy grabbed my briefcase and started to kick me.  I swung my tongue at his knee, knocked him to the ground, grabbed my briefcase and escaped into the railroad terminal.  Had the tongue not been frozen solid, who knows what would have happened?  

Several years later, I was reminded of this event while watching an episode of ______, in which a wife kills her husband by hitting him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb.  When a policeman comes looking for the weapon, the murderer serves him the leg of lamb, well done, and he eats the evidence.  I too ate my weapon.  It was delicious.  


The case of the questionable antiques

My brother Nathan and I were retained to appeal the conviction of a Persian antiquities seller, who was charged with arranging the theft of his own antiquities.  The story, which became a lead article in The New Yorker magazine, involved a man whose father had been the director of antiquities for the Shaw of Iran.  When the Shaw fell, the son took the family’s antiquities and opened a shop in London.  The Metropolitan Museum in New York wanted to exhibit the antiquities, since the owner said they were pre-Mohammaden and therefore very valuable.  The owner had an expert examine and certify them as pre-Mohammaden and they were then shipped to the museum.  When they arrived in New York, they were stolen. The District Attorney charged our client with arranging for their theft, because, as the DA alleged, they were not really pre-Mohammaden and therefore considerably less valuable.  The motive was to collect insurance based on the artificially-high British evaluation. When the client asked us to do his appeal, he offered to pay us in pre-Mohammaden antiquities.  I responded, “Would you really want a lawyer who was foolish enough to accept pre-Mohammaden antiquities from a man charged with falsely dating them?”  We agreed on a retainer and we won the case.  Not only was the client totally reprieved but he even got his antiquities back.  Shortly thereafter, he sent me a bonus for winning.  Sure enough, it was an antiquity.  I hope it’s real.  


OJ’s glove

I happen to be on the way to Australia to deliver a talk.  There was a stopover in Los Angeles and I decided to pay a visit to the OJ trial.  My usual role was to provide legal briefs and memoranda from my office in Cambridge on two or three occasions I appeared in court to argue motions, but these appearances were rare and episodic.  On this day, I had no real business to conduct in the courtroom, but when my son picked me up at the airport, I suggested that we drop by and simply say hello to the legal team and OJ, and join the legal team for lunch. My son turned on the radio, which was carrying the trial live.  The man on the witness stand was an expert in gloves,  He was testifying in the most boring and tedious matter ever, about the stitching in gloves.  We practically fell asleep in the car listening to the tedium.  Elon begged me not to go to the courthouse and continue to listen to this boring testimony, but I insisted.  Upon entering the courthouse I sat down next to the lawyers and my son sat in ….within 5 minutes of our appearance in court, Prosecutor Dardin got up and asked to have OJ try on the glove.  It was about the dumbest ploy any prosecutor could have tried, especially since under CA law, he could have insisted that OJ try on the glove outside the presence of the jury, before he decided to conduct this experiment in front of the jury.  But Dardin was not one for legal subtlety.  OJ walked right in front of me, tried on the glove, and in the most dramatic moment of the most ___ month trial, walked in front of the jury and showed them that it didn’t fit.  He even “testified ‘it’s too small.’”  [get exact quote]

Shortly after this dramatic moment, the lunch recess was called and I went to OJ’s holding cell behind the courtroom.  I told him that it was likely that they would ask him to try on the glove without the latex underglove he wore during the courtroom experiment.  He assured me that it still wouldn’t fit.  

My grandmother would have said, “it was bashert”—that is ordained—that I would be in the courtroom just at the moment that led to the famous closing argument “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”  



Singing with Vidal Sassoon

I was the guest speaker at a Hebrew University dinner honoring Frank Gary.  Among the guests was the hair stylist Vidal Sassoon.  The topic of my speech was the Middle East conflict.  I was introduced to Sassoon by David Steinberg, the comedian.  Steinberg said, “Did you know that Vidal Sassoon had fought for Israel during its War of Independence?”  Sassoon added, “I was in the Palmach,” which was the elite strike force.  Sassoon simply didn’t look like he was old enough to have participated in the 1948 war so I issued him a challenge, “Sing the Palmach song for me.”  Without a moment’s hesitation, Vidal Sassoon started to belt out the anthem of the Palmach.  Since I too knew the song, from my time at Zionist camp in 1948, I sang along with him.  So here were these two old men singing “Mi mitula ad hanegev, rishonim tamud anachau tamid anu anu hapalmach.”  A crowd quickly gathered around us and the few people our own age joined in the singing.  It was a wonderfully nostalgic moment for us all.  

David Merrick Adoption


Shooting Foul Shots in the Boston Garden


Throwing out first pitch at Fenway for my birthday and having sandwich named after you at Bleacher Bar 



________________

Years later, after Anatoly, now Natan, became a leading political figure in Israel, we were both invited to speak at the celebration of Israel’s 60th birthday.  Many world leaders were also invited.  One of the events was held in the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem.

I got into the elevator and by coincidence both Mikael Gorbachov and Sharansky got into the same elevator.  Gorbachov recognized us (I had met him in Moscow during one of my human rights trips while he was the Chairman of the Communist Party and the head of state).  He pointed at me and said to Sharanksy:  “He’s a good lawyer, but I’m an even better lawyer.”  Sharansky replied, “But he got me out of the Soviet prison.”  Gorbachov smiled and said “I got you out.  He helped, but without me you would have sat longer.”  We all got a good laugh and shook hands.



Claus Von Bulow 

After we won the case, Claus and his then girlfriend decided to host a dinner party.  I told them I would not come if it was a victory party, since I have a policy of not going to victory parties of criminal defendants.  He assured me that it was merely a dinner for several interesting people.  He told me among his other guests would be the novelist Norman Mailer and his wife.  When the dinner began, Claus regaled everybody with stories from the trial and I explained why the evidence seemed to point to his innocence.  About halfway through the dinner, Mailer grabbed his wife’s arm and said, “Let’s get out of here.  I think this guy is innocent.  I thought we were going to be having dinner with a man who actually tried to kill his wife.  This is boring.”  In fact, many of my most exciting cases involved very boring people, though Claus was not one of them.  When the movie came out, Claus refused to go to see it insisting that he would never watch Jeremy Irons play him.  Several months later I was having lunch with Claus and his most recent girlfriend who I had never previously met.  After about an hour of conversation with me, she turned to Claus and said, “Now that I’ve met Alan I believe that Ron Silver really didn’t do him justice.  He overplayed him.”  Claus immediately shook his head in agreement saying, “You’re right my dear, I too think he overplayed him.”  This from a man who claimed he didn’t see the film.  



The killing of John Lennon

Another death for which I have long felt some responsibility was the murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman in 1980.  Lennon was in the United States on that fateful day because I helped him avoid deportation back to England in 197_.  Had our legal team not been successful in stopping the Nixon Administration’s efforts to deport Lennon on trumped up allegations relating to his use of marijuana in England, Lennon would have been deported and banned from the United States.  It is highly unlikely (though not impossible) that Chapman would have stalked and shot him on the streets of London or Liverpool, as he did on Central Park West in New York.

I was retained by an excellent deportation lawyer named Len Wildes to write a legal memorandum on the impropriety of the deportation request.  (My fee was to be a record album signed by John Lennon: Lennon signed it; Wildes lost it; and my children nearly killed me!)  We won the case and Lennon continued to live in Dakoda for the ___ years before he was killed.

His killer, Mark Chapman, had no money to hire a lawyer and so the court appointed a former student of mine and friend Jonathan Marks, to represent him.  Marks is a brilliant and innovative lawyer who wanted to raise a defense based on Chapman’s mental state.  He asked me to consult with him on the case, but I didn’t feel comfortable helping a defendant who had killed my former client.  So I declined.  

Several years later, I happened to run into Yoko Ono at an art auction.  I told her how sad I was that we had won the deportation case, because if we had lost, John would still be alive.  She became angry at what I had said:  “Don’t ever think that,” she admonished.  “Those ___ years were the happiest in his life and mine.  He gave me John Ono.  You did a good thing.”  She reached over, kissed me and thanked me.  I still feel somewhat responsible for what happened on that awful day in front of the Dakoda.  



Mazoltuv Borukhova

In February 2011, I argued the appeal of Mazoltuv Borukhova, whose murder conviction became the basis of Janet Malcolm’s best seller, Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial.  Borukhova, a young doctor who recently immigrated from Bukhara in the former Soviet Union, was involved in a hotly contested divorce and custody suit with her dentist husband, who had also immigrated from Bukhara.  Mazoltuv was accused of hiring a cousin from the State of Georgia to come up to Queens and murder her husband.  She was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.  The major issue on appeal was similar to the one that resulted in the reversal of Sandra Murphy’s conviction, namely a hearsay statement, testified to by the murder victim’s father, describing a statement allegedly made by the murder victim that suggested he feared being killed by his estranged wife.  The court ruled that this statement should not have been admitted into evidence, but that the other evidence presented to the jury was so overwhelming, that the error of admitting the hearsay was “harmless”—that means that the jury would have convicted Borukhova even if they had never heard this inadmissible evidence.  Appellate courts are not really in a good position to evaluate what a jury would have concluded if certain evidence had been excluded.  The case is now on habeus corpus.  





Gigi Jordan

I am currently representing a woman named Gigi Jordan, who admittedly killed her 8 year old severely autistic child and tried to take her own life at the same time.  There is considerable evidence that her child was being sexually abused by his biological father and Gigi was in great fear that her former husband was trying to kill her.  If he succeeded, she believed that her autistic child would be left at the mercy of his sexually abusive father.  Gigi decided that this horrible choice of evils required her to protect her child in the only way she knew how:  by ending his life along with hers.  We are in the process of preparing for her trial.  




Leona Helmsley

Leona Helmsley was not a good client.  She too was boring and rather stupid.  She was called the queen of mean, and I can only disclose incidents that occurred in public.  Here’s one that shows how she earned her title.  We were having breakfast in the dining room of her hotel, when a waiter brought me a cup of tea.  She noticed, but I didn’t, that a little bit of the tea had dripped onto the saucer.  It was certainly no big deal.  When she saw it she grabbed the tea and the saucer and threw it on the floor in the direction of the waiter, shattering it into many pieces.  She then screamed at the waiter, “Now clean it up and beg me for your job.”  I simply walked away, not wanting to be associated with that kind of public rudeness.  

When my daughter was born, Leona had her private jet fly a large stuffed bear to Boston, where it was placed in a limo and brought to our home.  My daughter loved the bear and several years later had an opportunity to thank Leona for sending it.  Leona replied: “It’s stolen merchandise.  I stole it from Donald Trump.”  She then explained how she had sold a hotel to Trump that included a pastry restaurant called Rumplemyers, which was decorated with large stuffed animals.  The sale included the stuffed animals, but Leona took the bear, which belonged to Trump, and sent it to my daughter.  I told Leona that I would either have to return the stolen bear or get Trump’s permission to keep it.  She said, “tell the Donald I stole it from him.  See what he says.”  I told Trump.  He laughed and said “I’m not surprised.  Let your daughter enjoy the bear.”  

One day my brother, who was another of her lawyers, was invited to a birthday party at her house.  He brought my mother along.  Leona knew that my mother did not want to be confronted with the reality that my brother is not kosher outside of his house.  My brother, sensitive to this, always eats only kosher food in her presence.  He was on line with my mother at the buffet choosing among the smoked salmon and vegetables when Leona came over to my mother and brother and in her booming voice yelled, “In front of your mother you eat salmon.  In front of me you eat lobster.  Ha ha ha.”  It was entirely gratuitous, hurtful and all too typical.

Although my brother and I—who were her appellate lawyers—saved Helmsley several years imprisonment by winning the state appeal—Helmsley refused to pay our final legal bill.  We should have demanded up front payment for all our services because she had a reputation for “negotiating” all of her bills.  (“I’ll give you 25 cents on the dollar.  If you don’t like it, sue me!”)  My brother eventually sued her but dropped the suit after she said she would spend “a large fortune beating him into the ground.”  

Once when we were waiting to go to court, Leona told me a joke about two competitive Russian neighbors who hated each other.  One day, the first one tripped over a lamp and a genie popped out.  “You get the usual three wishes, but here’s the catch: everything you ask for and receive, your neighbor gets double.”  He asked for a thousand rubies, and the next day the neighbor boasted, “I got 2,000 rubies.”  He asked for a beautiful woman, and the neighbor bragged he got two women.  Finally, in frustrations he asked the genie, “Would it be too painful to cut off one of my testicles?”  

That, in a nutshell, was Leona Helmsley.  She cared more about hurting others than helping herself.  




Being mentored by Elie Wiesel

Since the beginning of my career, Elie Wiesel—the world’s most famous and influential Holocaust survivor—has served as a guide, mentor and friend.  I have sought his advice on many issues, and he has sought mine.  

As a professor of public law, I get to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.  In 1986, I nominated him.  In my letter of nomination, I wrote the following:

     No one in the world today deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than Elie Wiesel.  Professor Wiesel represents the survivors of the most massive genocide ever perpetrated on a segment of humankind—with the implicit approval of so many bystanders.  It is particularly disappointing that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee—which, because of its North European heritage, in some sense represents a portion of these bystanders—has never seen fit to recognize Professor Wiesel’s contribution to peace.

     To understand Professor Wiesel’s unique and immeasurable contribution to peace, one must only imagine how it might have been without a Wiesel.  It is impossible to imagine the rage that must be continually experienced by direct and indirect survivors of the Holocaust.  Other victims have responded by non-peaceful means—for example, the continuing violence of some Armenians against Turks.  Jewish survivors have not.  There has been no terrorism against innocent Germans—or even guilty Germans who live in luxury and sometimes in honor.  For this alone, the Jewish survivors as a group deserve recognition for their contribution to peace.

     Professor Wiesel’s role in helping to shape the attitude of the first and second generations of survivors is, of course, widely acknowledged.