U.S. Supreme Court justice. Born in New York City into a family of Sephardic Jews, Cardozo was graduated with high honors from Columbia College, and in 1891, received his degree in law from the Columbia University Law School. He practiced law in New York, and was elected justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York in 1913. President Herbert Hoover appointed Cardozo to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1932.

Cardozo was a trustee of Columbia University; a member of the Board of Governors of the American Friends of the Hebrew University; and a member of the executive committees of the National Jewish Welfare Board and of the American Jewish Committee. He also distinguished himself in legal literature. His books include The Nature of the Judicial Process, Paradoxes of the Legal Sciences, and Law and Literature. In his writings, he always endeavored to reconcile the law with the spirit and needs of the times. Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law was named after him.