For immediate release, April 28, 2000

Steve Balkin, Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, 312-341-3696 <mar@openair.org>

AT 93 years old, Elmer Gertz died on Thursday, April 27, 2000. He came from the Maxwell Street neighborhood and rose to prominence as an attorney for such famous people as Nathan Leopold, Jack Ruby, and Henry Miller.

He was the son of Morris and Grace Gertz. His father ran a clothing store on 39th and Cottage Grove Avenue. Gertz attended the Herzl Elementary School with classmate Arthur Goldberg, who later became a Supreme Court Justice. His mother died when he was 10. So from then on, he grew up in orphanages in Chicago and Cleveland.

One of his first jobs coming out of University of Chicago Law School was working 14 years for the law firm of the influential behind-the-scenes Democrat, Jacob Arvey, who also came from the Maxwell Street neighborhood.

In the 1940s, he was active in the fair housing movement and in admitting African Americans in bar association.

One his most famous cases was a 14 year libel lawsuit against the John Birch Society, who accused him of being a criminal and a Communist. That case went to the Supreme Court where he won the case, setting extra protections for people against defamation.

Mr. Gertz won election to the Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1969, and was chairman of its Bill of Rights committee. He received Israel's Prime Minister's Medal in 1972.

Survivors include a daughter, Margery Hechtman; son Theodore; six grandchildren; five great-grandchildren, and two brothers, Robert and George. The funeral service will be on Monday, May 1, 2000 at the Weinstein Chapel, 111 Skokie Blvd in Wilmette, IL . Burial will be at Memorial Park, Skokie.

Below is a letter Elmer Gertz wrote to the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999 in support the saving old Maxwell Street.

For more information about Elmer Gertz, read Neil Steinberg's Obituary in the April 28, 2000 Chicago Sun Times, p. 68, and read Mr. Gertz's books mentioned in his letter below.

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From Elmer Gertz, Law Professor and Author

Elmer Gertz, Chicago, IL

Dear Chancellor Broksi,

The Maxwell Street neighborhood was a special place, especially along Maxwell and Halsted Streets. It was at the center of Jewish and immigrant culture in Chicago. Many of our ancestors lived or spent considerable time in this neighborhood.

I was born in that neighborhood at Blue Island and Roosevelt Road. It had a great influence in my life. My first father-in-law, Morris Samuels, had a kosher meat market on Jefferson. I was co-chairman of the 100 Year Celebration of the Marcy-Newberry Settlement.

One of my most notorious clients, Jack Ruby, was from that neighborhood. With much hard work, we were able to save him from the death penalty. You can read about that in my book, Moment of Madness: the people vs. Jack Ruby, Follett Pub. Co. (1968). I also defended author Henry Miller. For over twenty years, his novel, Tropic of Cancer, was banned in the USA. I successfully defended the book's publication in Illinois and elsewhere. We have to look behind facades; sometimes art, once considered too raw and earthy, can become respected and even revered.

You can learn more about my life in my autobiography, To life. Carbondale, Southern University Press, (1974) and in Who's Who in America and in Contemporary Authors. I have been a professor at the John Marshall Law School for 28 years.

For the sake of future generations, I urge you to reconsider your plans for demolition of this historic neighborhood. Please back the vision of the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition and be a hero for history.

Sincerely,

Elmer Gertz

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