Funeral services were held today for State Supreme Court Justice Edgar J. Nathan, Jr., who died here yesterday at the age of 73. He served as president of the Borough of Manhattan from 1942 to 1946.
A descendant of Abraham de Lucena, one of the 13 Jews who settled in New Amsterdam (later New York) in 1654, and of Rabbi Gershon Mendes Seixas, spiritual leader of New York’s Shearith Israel Congregation during the American Revolution, Justice Nathan had served as president of Shearith Israel, the famed Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, since 1951.
Born in New York City, Justice Nathan was named to the New York State Supreme Court bench in 1946. He served as secretary of the Jewish Family Service in New York from 1932 to 1946, and as a director and member of the executive committee of the American Ort Federation.
He was also active on behalf of the Jewish Welfare Board, American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He served as chairman of the American Jewish Tercentenary Committee in 1954.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.