Surviving relatives include Miss Addie Cardozo, Henry J. Hendricks and Edgar J. Nathan, Jr., all of whom were on the way to his bedside from New York City when he died; Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, one of the founders of Barnard College, and Maud Nathan.
Justice Cardozo, who was unmarried, was taken ill with heart ailment last December and has since been away from the bench. He was appointed to the nation’s highest tribunal by president Herbert Hoover, who named him in March, 1933, on the eve of the Roosevelt Administration. His appointment was approved by the Senate without a dissenting vote. He came to the high court from the New York court of appeals, of which he was chief justice.
Although never active in Jewish organizational work, Justice Cardozo was known to be keenly interested in all matters affecting his coreligionists. Born in New York City on May 24, 1870, he was descended from two distinguished Jewish families. His mother, Rebecca Washington Nathan, was a descendant of Rabbi Gershon Seixas, a Sephardic Jew who came to this country from Portugal in 1654 and became one of the first trustees of kings College, later Columbia University. Two members of this family played active roles in the Amer can Revolution.
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.
