Albert Cardozo

Albert Cardozo
Born	Albert Jacob Cardozo (1828-12-21)December 21, 1828 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	New York City
Nationality	American
Occupation	Jurist
Spouse(s)	Rebecca Washington Nathan (m. 1854)
Children	Benjamin (1870–1938)

Albert Jacob Cardozo (December 21, 1828 – November 8, 1885) was an attorney and an American jurist in New York.

Early background

Albert Jacob Cardozo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the son of Ellen Hart and Michael H. Cardozo, Sephardi Jews of the Portuguese Jewish community. Sephardi Jews immigrated to the colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries from London. The family returned to New York, where Albert Cardozo went to school and read the law; he passed the bar and began practicing law in New York in 1849.

He married Rebecca Washington (née Nathan). Her parents, Sara Seixas and Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan, were also Sephardic Jews in New York. Among their children was a daughter Nell and fraternal twins, Benjamin and Emily, 11 years younger. After Rebecca died when the twins were young, Nell had a key role in rearing them.

Career

Cardozo became a justice in 1864 of the Supreme Court of New York, that state's trial court.

He was implicated in a Tammany Hall judicial corruption scandal that were sparked by the Erie Railway takeover wars in 1868. The scandal led to the creation of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and to Cardozo's resignation from the bench in 1872. He resumed the practice of law until his death in 1885.

Albert Cardozo served as vice president and trustee of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City; both his and his wife's family had belonged to the congregation, established in the 17th century.