Representative Lester Holtzman

Lester Holtzman (June 1, 1913 – November 12, 2002) was an American lawyer, jurist, and Democratic politician who served as a Representative from New York in the United States Congress during a significant period in American history and later as a justice of the New York Supreme Court. He was born in New York City on June 1, 1913, to Jewish immigrants from Poland, Isidore and Rebecca Holtzman. Lester was the couple’s only child born in the United States; his older sister, Rose, was born in Poland and immigrated with her parents. They were the only two of the family’s children to survive infancy. The family initially lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In 1916, after Lester contracted polio, his parents moved the family to Middle Village in Queens, where they hoped he would have a better chance to recover.

Holtzman grew up in Queens and attended Newtown High School. During his youth, his father purchased a small grocery store, and Lester worked there while pursuing his education. He undertook prelaw studies in the evening, balancing work and academics as he prepared for a legal career. He went on to attend St. John’s University School of Law, where he was elected president of his class. Holtzman graduated from St. John’s in 1936, the same year he married Mae Gress. The couple would have two children, Matthew and Joy. Following his admission to the bar, he entered private legal practice in Queens, establishing himself as a local attorney while also seeking opportunities in public service, including at one point receiving an offer of a position with the Federal Housing Administration.

Holtzman’s political ambitions culminated in a run for Congress in 1952. That election year was nationally favorable to Republicans, as Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president and the Republican Party gained 22 seats in the House of Representatives. Holtzman ran as a Democrat against Republican incumbent Robert Tripp Ross, who had won his seat in a special election only months earlier. During the campaign, which centered in part on local issues, Holtzman pledged to halt low-flying aircraft takeoffs into LaGuardia Airport, located in the district—a promise he later acknowledged was unfulfillable and the only conscious lie he ever told in his political career. In a very close race, he defeated Ross by approximately 300 votes, becoming the only Democrat in the country to unseat a Republican incumbent that year and the first Jewish congressman elected from Queens.

As a member of the House of Representatives, Holtzman served New York in the United States Congress from 1953 to 1963, contributing to the legislative process during five terms in office as reflected in contemporary accounts, while official congressional records identify four consecutive terms from January 3, 1953, to January 3, 1961. He was reelected in 1954, defeating popular Republican State Senator Seymour Halpern by more than 10,000 votes, and again in 1956, when he prevailed over former Justice Albert Buschmann. Holtzman was generally regarded as a backbencher rather than a prominent national figure, but he consistently supported civil rights, the State of Israel, and organized labor. Although he participated actively in debates and votes and represented the interests of his Queens constituents during a transformative era in American politics, he did not introduce any legislation that ultimately was signed into law. After winning reelection in 1960, he chose not to continue in Congress, instead seeking a judicial post that promised greater long-term stability.

In 1961, Holtzman successfully pursued a seat on the New York Supreme Court, the state’s trial-level court of general jurisdiction. He was elected with the assistance of national Democratic leaders, including President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, whose support helped secure his nomination. He began his service as a justice of the New York Supreme Court in 1962 and remained on the bench until 1973. During his judicial career, he presided over a number of notable cases. Following reforms to New York’s divorce laws, Holtzman handled the first divorce case brought under the new legal framework, marking a significant moment in the modernization of family law in the state.

Holtzman’s most widely discussed judicial involvement came in connection with the controversy surrounding New York’s 1970 legalization of abortion. In 1971, he was assigned the case of Byrn v. New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, in which Fordham University law professor Robert Byrn sought to challenge the state’s abortion statute. Holtzman ruled that Byrn could act as a guardian for the unborn, thereby granting him legal standing to bring suit to overturn the law. In connection with this action, Holtzman also issued an order requiring New York City’s public hospitals to show cause why they should not cease performing abortions while the statute’s validity was under challenge. The case ultimately proceeded through the appellate courts, and in 1972 the Appellate Division and the New York Court of Appeals held that fetuses did not possess legal personhood under state law, thereby rejecting Byrn’s challenge and leaving the abortion statute in place.

In 1973, after more than a decade on the bench, Holtzman retired from the New York Supreme Court. He then entered the financial sector, becoming president of the Queens Savings & Loan Association, a position that allowed him to remain active in civic and community affairs in the borough he had long represented and served. In his later years, he lived away from New York, and on November 12, 2002, Lester Holtzman died in Rockville, Maryland. His life and career, spanning private law practice, five terms of congressional service as a Democrat from New York during a pivotal era, and more than a decade as a state Supreme Court justice, placed him among the notable Jewish members of the United States Congress and a significant figure in the political and judicial history of Queens and New York State.