Funeral services were held here today for State Supreme Court Justice Arthur G.Klein who died Tuesday at the age of 63. Judge Klein served in Congress for 15 years and on the Bench for 12. He was elevated to the Supreme Court of New York in 1956.
Justice Klein was born on New York’s lower East Side, the youngest of eight children of Hungarian-Jewish immigrants. He was an Orthodox Jew throughout his life. He graduated from New York University Law School in 1926 and became active in Tammany politics in his old neighborhood. In 1934 he became a lawyer for the Security and Exchange Commission in Washington and was first elected to Congress from his home district in 1941. He was also a partner in the Wall St. law firm of Klein, Wikler & Gottlieb from which he resigned when he took his seat on the State Supreme Court.
Justice Klein’s most famous decision came in 1963 when he threw out the State ban on the sale of the book “Fanny Hill.” He ruled that the book was not obscene and that the ban was unconstitutional. His rule was upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court.
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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.
