Jeremiah S. Gutman

Jeremiah S. Gutman (c. 1924{{snd}}February 25, 2004) was an American civil rights lawyer and founding member of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Biography

Gutman served in World War II as a corporal in the 2nd platoon, Company G of the 273rd Infantry Regiment in the 69th Infantry Division, receiving a Purple Heart.{{cite news |last1=Lueck |first1=Thomas J |title=Jeremiah S. Gutman, 80, a Fighter for Free Speech |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/nyregion/jeremiah-s-gutman-80-a-fighter-for-free-speech.html |access-date=12 April 2024 |work=New York Times |date=26 February 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410233020/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/nyregion/jeremiah-s-gutman-80-a-fighter-for-free-speech.html |archive-date=10 April 2021}}{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Deborah Dash |title=GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation |date=11 November 2004 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-01509-8 |pages=160,253 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6dExD3wChyMC |access-date=12 April 2024 |language=en}} During the 1948 Palestine war, he collected light arms to smuggle to the Haganah.{{cite news |last1=Colton |first1=Miriam |title=J. Gutman, Rights Advocate, 80 |url=https://forward.com/news/6533/j-gutman-rights-advocate-80/ |access-date=12 April 2024 |work=The Forward |date=19 March 2004 |language=en}}

As a student at the New York University School of Law, Gutman edited the New York University Law Review. In 1949, he joined the law firm Levy, Gutman, Goldberg & Kaplan, where his father was a partner. In 1951, hoping to combat McCarthyism, Gutman became a founding member of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Over the course of his career, Gutman litigated many civil rights cases, with prominent clients including Abbie Hoffman, Douglas Faneuil, Jerry Rubin, and conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War. He also defended cult leaders such as Sun Myung Moon and leaders of the Hare Krishna movement; sociologist Stjepan Meštrović described Gutman as "sympathetic to cult movements, express[ing] regret that the First Amendment is not applied vigorously to defend them, and refer[ring] to 'deprogramming' as a 'dirty business'".{{cite journal |last1=Mestrovic |first1=Stjepan G. |date=1990 |title=Cults and New Religious Movements: A Report of the Committee on Psychiatry and Religion of the American Psychiatric Association |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093185390018001-218?journalCode=plxa |journal=Journal of Psychiatry & Law |volume=18 |issue=1–2 |page=226 |doi=10.1177/0093185390018001- |doi-broken-date=12 July 2025 |access-date=12 April 2024}}

In 2001, Gutman became the chair of the National Coalition Against Censorship, where he had served as an officer since the 1980s.{{cite web |title=Jeremiah Gutman - NCAC Chair Dies |url=https://ncac.org/censorship-news-articles/jeremiah-gutman-ncac-chair-dies |website=National Coalition Against Censorship |access-date=12 April 2024 |date=19 April 2004}} He became president of Meretz USA in the same year. Gutman died from a heart attack on February 25, 2004.

References

Category:1920s births

Category:Year of birth uncertain

Category:2004 deaths

Category:American civil rights lawyers