Raised in a New York Sephardi milieu, Benjamin Cardozo was, together with his twin Emily, the youngest of seven children born to Rebecca Washington Nathan and Albert Jacob Cardozo. Benjamin’s father was a lawyer and served on the Supreme Court of New York. He would follow in his father’s footsteps, though he climbed to greater judicial heights, while avoiding the pitfalls of scandal that challenged his father’s time on the bench.

Cardozo served on the New York Court of Appeals from 1914 until 1932, when Herbert Hoover appointed him to fill the seat vacated by Oliver Wendell Holmes. He had a huge impact on the development of American common law in the twentieth century.