ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What was a “Brandeis brief”?
Louis Brandeis was the first Jew to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court in the United States. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1856 to parents who had immigrated there from Germany. He was a progressive and public advocate and became known as “the people’s lawyer”. Brandeis was ahead of his time on many issues, and notably believed that the Constitution must be flexible enough to deal with any present-day and future situations that might arise. He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and served until his retirement in 1939. He died in 1941 at the age of 84.
Richard Michelson is a poet, children’s book author, art curator, speaker, and owner of R. Michelson Galleries located in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has also curated exhibitions at the National Yiddish Book Center. Michelson is a popular guest speaker and lecturer. He has traveled throughout the world talking to children and teachers about his love of poetry and social justice.
Michelson’s many books for children, teens and adults have been listed among the Ten Best of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The New Yorker. His books are related to Jewish themes, with a strong emphasis on questions of social justice. He has received a National Jewish Book Award and two Sydney Taylor Gold Medals and two Silver ones from the Association of Jewish Libraries. He is the first author to receive both of these top two book awards in a single year.
His latest book, What Louis Brandeis Knows: A Crusader for Social Justice Becomes a Supreme Court Justice, tells the story of Brandeis in a picture book for young readers ages 7-10 and was one of Tablet Magazine’s Best Jewish Children’s Books of 2025.
