Lewis Naphtali Dembitz: Difference between revisions

'''Lewis Naphtali Dembitz''' (February 3, 1833 – March 11, 1907) was a [[German American]] legal scholar. HisHe influenced his nephew [[Louis Brandeis]], who admired him greatly, choseto choose law as a profession because of Dembitz.<ref>{{cite book |last=Urofsky |first=Melvin |title=Louis D. Brandeis: A Life |publisher=Random House |location=New York |year=2009 |isbn=0307378586978-0307378583 |page=18 }}</ref>

Born into a [[Ashkenazi Jews|Jewish]] family in [[Sieraków|Zirke]], in the [[Prussia]]n [[province of Posen]], he attended [[Gymnasium (Germany)|gymnasium]] in [[Frankfurt (Oder)|Frankfurt]], [[Żagań|Sagan]], and [[Głogów|Glogau]]. After one semester at the [[Charles University in Prague]] studying law, he emigrated to the [[United States]] in 1849. He continued to trainstudy American law in offices at [[Cincinnati, Ohio]], and [[Madison, Indiana]]. After doing journalistic work for a time, he began in 1853 the practiseto ofpractice law at the bar of Kentucky, in [[Louisville, Kentucky]], which practisewhere he has continuedremained for the remainderrest of his career.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kleber |first=John E. |title=The Kentucky Encyclopedia |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=1992 |isbn=9780813117720 |chapter=Dembitz, Lewis Naphtali |pages=247–248 }}</ref>

Also politicallyPolitically active, Dembitz was a delegate to the [[1860 Republican National Convention]], assistant city attorney of Louisville, 1884–1888, and was a commissioner for Kentucky to the Conference for the Uniformity of State Laws. In 1888, Dembitz drafted the first [[Secret ballot|Australian ballot]] law ever adopted in the United States, to govern elections in Louisville. His legal works include: ''Kentucky Jurisprudence'', 1890; ''Law Language for Shorthand Writers'', 1892; and ''Land Titles in the United States'', 2 vols., 1895. He is the author of "The Question of Silver Coinage," in the ''Present Problem Series'', 1896, No. 1; and has written a number of book-reviews for ''The Nation'', 1888–97, besides articles in other magazines and in newspapers.

Dembitz iswas strongly attached to conservative Judaism. He was one of the early members of the executive board of the [[Union of American Hebrew Congregations]], and in 1878 a member of the commission on the plan of study for the [[Hebrew Union College]]. In 1898 he acted as chairman at a convention of Orthodox congregations, and was elected a vice-president of the [[Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregational UnionCongregations of America]]. In addition to memoirs, articles, and addresses which have appeared in Jewish papers, he has published ''Jewish Services in Synagogue and Home'', 1898; "The Lost Tribes," in the ''Andover Review'', Aug.,August 1889; and has revised [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]] and [[Book of Leviticus|Leviticus]] for the [[Jewish Publication Society of America Version|new translation of the Bible to be issued]] by the [[Jewish Publication Society of America]] eventually published in 1917.

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