Jewish Chief Justice Campaigns to Keep His Seat in Ohio
By Nathan Guttman October 7, 2010
Think you have a good grip of all the Jewish candidates running for office in the November elections?
Well, how about Judge Eric Brown from Ohio?
Yes, he is Jewish, and yes, he is running.
Eric Brown, if elected, will be the first Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. In fact, he already is. Brown was appointed by the governor to fill in the vacancy of the sudden death of Chief Justice Thomas Moyer in April, but now he is running for a full 6-year term.
If elected, Brown would not only be the first Jewish justice to head the court, he will also be the only Democrat residing on the highest court of the buckeye state. And this is one of the main points Brown is trying to make on his campaign.
“It’s important to have a mix of opinions,” he stressed in a recent interview with the Forward.
Brown started off as a private practice lawyer in Cleveland and than joined the Attorney General’s office. He said Jewish values are the driving force in his public life and that he is motivated by the idea of tikkun olam, or repairing the world.
“I talk about my Jewish values as something that informs and motivates me. I talk about it in front of all crowds, not only Jewish,” Brown said. “My Jewish identity is not something that guides me when I decide cases, but it is what brought me to this profession.
As the race currently looks, the dream of a first Jewish chief justice in Ohio may be far from coming true. According to a September 25 poll published in the Columbus Dispatch Brown is significantly behind his rival, Maureen O’Connor, who gets 46% of votes, compared to 18% who said they’d vote for Brown.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
