Alan Dershowitz

Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is Brooklyn native who has been called "the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer" and one of its "most distinguished defenders of individual rights," "the best-known criminal lawyer in the world," "the top lawyer of last resort," "America's most public Jewish defender" and "Israel's single most visible defender - the Jewish state's lead attorney in the court of public opinion." He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg. He has also published more than 100 articles in magazines and journals such as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Nation, Commentary, Saturday Review, The Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal, and more than 300 of his articles have appeared in syndication in 50 national daily newspapers. Professor Dershowitz is the author of 27 fiction and non-fiction works with a worldwide audience. His most recent titles include "an exceptional, action packed book," The Trials of Zion, a novel which has been called "a thought-provoking page turner," Rights From Wrong, The Case For Israel, The Case For Peace, Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence and Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways, Finding Jefferson - A Lost Letter, A Remarkable Discovery, Shouting Fire and The First Amendment In An Age of Terrorism. In addition to his numerous law review articles and books about criminal and constitutional law, he has written, taught and lectured about history, philosophy, psychology, literature, mathematics, theology, music, sports - and even delicatessens. In 1983, the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith presented him with the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award for his "compassionate eloquent leadership and persistent advocacy in the struggle for civil and human rights." In presenting the award, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel said: "If there had been a few people like Alan Dershowitz during the 1930s and 1940s, the history of European Jewry might have been different." Professor Dershowitz has been awarded the honorary doctor of laws degree by Yeshiva University, the Hebrew Union College, Brooklyn College, Syracuse University, Tel Aviv University, New York City College and Haifa University.

ARTICLES BY: Alan Dershowitz

February 10, 2017 5:51 pm

0

Alan Dershowitz: Precedent Trumps President Trump

According to three judges of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, legal precedents by the Supreme Court doomed President Trump's Executive Order limiting...

February 9, 2017 2:52 pm

1

Alan Dershowitz: Israel Must Not Criminalize Political Differences

I recently returned from a visit to Israel, where the headlines focused on two investigations involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The first is about conversations...

February 7, 2017 6:15 pm

1

Alan Dershowitz: Courts Check and Balance Trump On Immigration

No one can predict how the legal challenges to the Trump executive order on immigration will turn out, but the courts will probably get the...

February 1, 2017 6:15 pm

1

Alan Dershowitz: Is Sally Yates a Hero or a Villain?

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired by President Donald Trump because she instructed the Justice Department lawyers not to defend Trump’s executive order regarding...

January 13, 2017 4:27 pm

6

Alan Dershowitz: Obama’s Mid-East Legacy Is Tragic Failure

The Middle East is a more dangerous place after eight years of the Obama Presidency than it was before. The eight disastrous Obama years follow...

January 11, 2017 11:34 am

8

Alan Dershowitz: Does the Anti-Nepotism Statute Preclude Trump From Appointing Kushner?

The controversy over President-elect Donald Trump’s expected appointment of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser raises serious constitutional issues regarding the separation of...

December 29, 2016 6:08 pm

0

Alan Dershowitz: Kerry’s Speech Will Make Peace Harder

  What if the Secretary of State gave a policy speech and no one cared? Because Secretary Kerry’s speech came after the US abstention on the United...

December 23, 2016 4:40 pm

1

Dershowitz: Trump Was Right to Try and Stop Obama From Tying His Hands on Israel

The Egyptian decision to withdraw the one-sided anti-Israel United Nations Security Council resolution should not mask the sad reality that it is the Obama administration...

November 30, 2016 6:26 pm

3

Alan Dershowitz: Keith Ellison, The Wrong Man at the Wrong Time

What should a political party that has just lost its white working class, blue-collar base to a “make America great again” nationalist do to try...

November 17, 2016 12:54 pm

3

Alan Dershowitz: Assessing the Bannon Appointment

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as his chief strategist has been criticized on the grounds that Bannon is an antisemite. There are many...

November 11, 2016 4:33 pm

1

Alan Dershowitz: What the Election Tells Us About the Past, Present and Future

The recent election ended in a virtual tie, as did the election of 2000. Voters were split approximately in half as they selected one of...

November 7, 2016 2:53 pm

3

Dershowitz: The Day After the Election

With the world’s attention focused on the presidential election, some attention must be devoted to the problems we will continue to face the day after...

November 1, 2016 10:12 am

12

Dershowitz: Obama, Don’t Destroy the Peace Process by Turning It Over to the UN

The Obama administration is sending strong signals that once the election is over it may make a major push to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at...

September 30, 2016 3:06 pm

1

Shimon Peres, a Leader for All Seasons

Shimon Peres understood the Biblical verse “to everything there is a season.” When he was a young man working for David Ben-Gurion, he saw that Israel’s very...