A Chambers Tour: Part Eight

A Chambers Tour

www.JudgeBernstein.org

What is it like behind the doors of justice?

This post is the eighth installment of a chambers tour, a guide to the objects that surround one judge at work.

On the wall of the conference room in the chambers were two photographs of the statue at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. 

Yad Mordechai was a Kibbutz in the Negev desert that was in the path of the Egyptian Army in 1948 during the Israeli war for independence. Before falling, Yad Mordechai held up the Egyptian Army for 6 days.

The delay at Yad Mordechai gave the newly established Israeli Defense Forces time to prepare for the Egyptians’ northward advance. They succeeded in halting the Egyptians at Ad Halom less than a week later, before the Egyptians could reach Tel Aviv.

The statue memorializes Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the Jewish Combat Organization (“?ydowska Organizacja Bojowa,” also known as “?OB”), during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Anielewicz led the uprising from January 18, 1943, until May 8, 1943, when the Nazis surrounded and captured his ?OB command post at 18 Mi?a Street. His body was never found.

The kibbutz, initially founded in 1930 by Polish immigrants from the Hashomer Hatzair group (“The Young Guard”), was renamed for Anielewicz in December 1943.

The two photographs were in my parents’ bedroom as I was growing up.

On September 30, 2016, I retired as an active judge. I am available for mediations and arbitrations at Ten Penn Center, 1801 Market Street, Suite 1100, Philadelphia, PA 19103. I can be reached at (267) 324-6773. Please endorse me on LinkedIn for mediations and dispute settlement.

Visit www.JudgeBernstein.org for selected publications and opinions and important links, including the first nine chapters of my new novel, The Trials of a Common Pleas Judge.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter Nine, “A Variety of Approaches”:

“Judge Brown and his court staff were very proud of their ability to resolve cases—although in the months that I observed, it did seem that the number of attorneys present for the cattle call never decreased and the number of cases pending in Common Pleas Court Number 9 was higher than in some of the other courts. Nothing actually occurred in the cattle call, and as I learned in conversation with Judge Brown, he never intended anything specific to occur.”

Visit the following link to read more of Chapter Nine:

https://www.judgebernstein.org/trials-of-common-pleas-judge-ch-9

I am publishing the novel on JudgeBernstein.org in serial form, chapter by chapter.

Watch for Chapter Ten on January 1, 2017!

Sincerely,

The Hon. Mark I. Bernstein (Ret.)