Sometimes a common event can remind you of the wonderful ways that others find to live their lives and help others. Tonight we went to a benefit for a group that helps Jewish women trapped in abusive relationships; it’s call the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse. We went because a good friend chairs the group, but also because they were honoring a remarkable pair of lawyers: Nathaniel "Nat" Lewin and his daughter Alyza Lewin . Together they are the law firm of Lewin & Lewin LLP . This article in Jewish Week Magazine describes them beautifully.
Nat has an impressive history; it was kind of thrilling to see him honored and hear him speak so beautifully and lovingly of his lawyer daughter, his photographer daughter, his wife and grandkids, then to hear Alyza thank her parents, her husband, her sister, her kids and her nanny, all of whom were there.
She described her memory of having "the talk" with her mom early in her adolescence — not "the talk" talk – but one at least as important. Her mother, she said, told her to be economically self-sufficient, AND to never let her work keep her from getting married and having children, Then, she continued, half joking, her mother said "These two things, they conflict. So now maybe it will be easier because I told you." Everyone laughed, mostly with recognition. We all know that clash and live with it.
Most moms have a connection with their kids, begun physically of course, before birth that continues in a way that makes leaving them to go to work tough. We were probably hard-wired that way. When I saw this mother of four describing her mother’s warning and her subsequent efforts to be mother and powerhouse attorney, I thought about so many women — those law school pioneers terrorized in class and shut out of study groups, med students thrown out of operating rooms because they were too germy to be there without pantyhose (true story), women reporters shut out of the Radio TV Correspondent’s dinner unless they came as "hostesses." We’ve all come a long way, and clearly Alyza Lewin, through her work, with her dad, on Jewish issues, is using the progress we made to help others. As Jewish Week wrote: "That’s meant
everything from representing apartment tenants whose landlords won’t
allow them to hang a mezuzah, to assisting government employees having
trouble getting their security clearances renewed because of family
ties to Israel, to helping rabbis ensure menorot can be displayed on
public property during Chanukah."
She comes by it naturally. Her dad, when he spoke, didn’t say much about his track record as an attorney – he didn’t need to. Again, the profile;
Combining his time as an assistant to the
solicitor general and private practice, he’s argued 27 cases in front of the
Supreme Court. And his daughter notes that there is no legal issue relating to
the Jewish community that doesn’t have his "fingerprints" on it. ..
he drafted the provision of the Civil Rights Act that protects one’s religious
observance or practice. Later in the decade, he wrote legislation that allowed
federal workers to work "compensatory time" if they wanted to get
time off to observe religious holidays. … Lewin is still trying to create further protection for religious liberty. The firm has taken up the case, on appeal, of a Jewish parole officer in New York whose employer pressured him not to observe religious holidays by scheduling
mandatory meetings and training sessions on those dates. They are arguing that
the plaintiff faced a "hostile work environment"
similar to the kind of environment considered actionable for sexual harassment and
that the courts should recognize such a standard for religious practice.
Before forming Lewin and Lewin, Nathan Lewin was
a founding partner at Miller, Cassidy, Larocca & Lewin. Among his most
well-known clients was Ed Meese, when the Reagan administration attorney
general was the subject of an independent counsel investigation over charges of
influence peddling. …
U.S.dLewin also was actress Jodie Foster’s lawyer
when she testified during the trial of John Hinckley for the shooting of
President Ronald Reagan. In 1975, Lewin represented John Lennon on an appeal of
a US decision to deport
him because of his previous conviction on drug possession charges in Great Britain.
Lewin said he never met the Beatle, having been recruited to handle the appeal
through Lennon’s lawyer. And he joked that he probably shouldn’t have cashed
the check Lennon sent him to pay for his services because the
autograph on it probably ended up being more valuable.
The Lewins currently …are working on a number of
other Jewish-related cases, such as the Boim case, in which, on behalf of a
victim of a Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, they successfully sued the Holy Land Foundation and two other U.S. charities for providing funding to the terrorist organization. They are waiting for the results of an appeal but the legal theory they devleloped has been adopted by a number of other terror victims since.
So. They deserved the honor. The issue is horrifying – the "Jews don’t do that sort of thing" myth decimated – like the lives of so many of the women JACADA works to help. The biggest reward for me though was to listen to this accomplished, unassuming and loving daughter tell her story and speak with such colleagial regard for her father. It’s how things should be. And so seldom are.
Two weeks ago I spent the weekend with 1,000 remarkable women. You know where; the Web has been full of posts and tweets and messages about BlogHer, the women bloggers conference. Since its founding, BlogHer has held four conferences, and I’ve been to three of them. For those three years I’ve wondered at the strength and power of both the gathering and each woman, most far younger than I, who is part of it. Audacious and rambunctious, honest and gifted, they are far beyond where I was at their age. I’ve always known that all of us, sisters from the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s, scratched and kicked and pulled and fought to move our lives, and those of the women around us, forward. In many ways, we made a difference. I’m proud of that. 