ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What was the Golden City and how did it work?  And why did it fall into disfavor?

The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans, known simply as the “Home”, was the first purpose-built Jewish orphanage in the nation.  It opened in 1856 and by the time it closed in 1946 it had sheltered more than 1600 children and two dozen widows.  Over the years Home’s physical structure as well as the manner of caring for the children changed as society’s approach to dependent child care evolved.

Marlene Trestman grew up in New Orleans as a client of the Jewish Children’s Regional Service, the successor to the Jewish Orphans’ Home.  She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Goucher College and went on to receive a law degree from George Washington University and MBA from Loyola University of Maryland, where she later taught law.  Marlene is a former special assistant to the Maryland Attorney General, where she started her 30-year legal career.

She twice received the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award and in 2004 was named Isidore Newman School’s Distinguished Alumnus. For her writing, she has received awards and generous financial support from the Supreme Court Historical Society, Hadassah Brandeis Institute, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.

Trestman is the author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin. Her latest book, Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans, is the first comprehensive history of the Home.  Based on extensive archival research and numerous interviews with alumni and their descendents, it traces the evolution of the Home from its founding in 1856 until its closing ninety years later.