Funeral services were held here today at Temple Emanu-El for Prof. Edmond Cahn, a member of the faculty of the New York University Law School, one of the most noted legal philosophers in this country, and a Jew who had visited and lecture in Israel and was vitally interested in Israeli legal and juridical affairs. He died here yesterday, aged 58.
He was to have departed for Jerusalem today to participate in one of the symposia being conducted in Israel this week by the American Jewish Congress. One of his contributions to the philosophy of law in Israel consisted of an exchange of letters with former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion about proposed Israeli legislation to curb the freedom of the press in the Jewish State. That exchange was published recently in Tulane University. Mr. Ben-Gurion’s proposed law has been dropped since the then Prime Minister introduced it in 1962.
In the United States, Prof. Cahn was known as a confidant of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. In 1950, he turned down a Rockefeller Foundation grant of $20,000 for a major research project because, he said, he wanted “perfect freedom of expression.” He was the author of a number of important books on law, a legal editor, and lectured widely in this country and abroad.
Born and brought up in New Orleans, he graduated from Tulane University in 1925 and received a law degree from that institution two years later. He held an honorary doctorate of law from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he had taught ethics. He lectured in the philosophy of law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
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