Judge Miriam Cedarbaum Remembered in Scarsdale

Longtime Scarsdale resident Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum passed away on February 5 at the age of 86 after suffering a severe stroke the week before. She lived in Greenacres with her husband Bernard Cedarbaum for many years. He died ten years ago after a 49-year marriage.

She was a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School. Appointed in 1986, Judge Cedarbaum served as a United States District Judge in the Southern District of New York for decades, taking senior status in 1998. She clerked for Judge Edward Jordan Dimock and then served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York.

At one point in her career, she served as the Village Justice in Scarsdale.

Judge Cedarbaum was a Trustee Emerita of Barnard College, and she was a member of the American Law Institute. She was awarded the Columbia Law School Medal for Excellence in 2015.

Peter Strauss, a former Mayor of Scarsdale and a neighbor from Greenacres said, "My wife Laura and I knew Miriam well. We also knew and admired her talented and community-minded late husband, Bernard, who was one of our memorable Village Trustees and was awarded the Scarsdale Bowl in 1999. Miriam and Laura had similar Brooklyn backgrounds, both having attended The Brooklyn Jewish Center Sunday School which was designed according to the Reconstructionist theories of Mordecai Kaplan whose principles Miriam admired. Closer to home and Scarsdale, in 1997 Miriam conducted the wedding ceremony of our daughter, Diana, and Michael Norwood, a Scotland Yard Homocide Detective. Earlier, Miriam was a member of a committee I chaired (1976-77), appointed by Joe Hofheimer, then School Board Chairman, to study the way in which the Scarsdale School Board negotiated its agreements with the Scarsdale Teachers Union. Until then the common practice was for the School Superintendent and the Board Chairman to negotiate directly with the Teachers Union. My committee, after extended study, unanimously recommended to the Board that it cease bargaining directly and hire a professional labor negotiator to conduct the negotiations on behalf of the Board. The Board, in a split vote, adopted the committee's recommendation, hired a professional negotiator, and that practice has continued to this day. Miriam was a significant force on that committee."

Former Scarsdale Mayor Ed Morgan, who served from 1997 - 1999, remembered Cedarbaum, saying, "With the passing last week of Miriam Cedarbaum, Scarsdale has lost one of its most notable, wise and lovely residents of recent decades. Miriam was a life member of the Scarsdale Forum, although in the past few years she had lived in Manhattan. Miriam and her husband Bernard Cedarbaum were both lawyers with distinguished backgrounds, who came to Scarsdale to live, raise their children, and be involved. And they were involved, both in Scarsdale and beyond. Both were members of the American Law Institute, a group which admits less than one tenth of one percent of American lawyers, including most Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and many other very prominent members of the legal profession.

In addition to her legal career in Manhattan as a corporate counsel and in private practice with Davis, Polk & Wardwell, Miriam was active in Scarsdale, among other things serving for several years as Scarsdale's Village Justice, handling both civil cases, and criminal cases in their early stages, in addition to the traffic matters perhaps best known to Scarsdale residents.

From there, Miriam was appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan to be a federal judge, specifically a U.S. District Judge handling trials in one of the busiest courts in the United States, in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. During the decades which followed, Miriam handled thousands of cases, many of them major civil or criminal matters. Most publicized of these was the trial of Martha Stewart on insider trading charges. Through it all, Miriam remained Miriam, as we saw her on her visits to Scarsdale and elsewhere. Those of us who were privileged to know her shall miss her greatly."

In 2015 Cederabaum was awarded the Medal for Excellence by the Dean of Columbia Law School. In an email from Dean Lester he says:

"This honor is reserved for those who best exemplify the qualities of character, intellect, and social and professional responsibility. Miriam Cedarbaum was one of eight women in her 1953 law school graduating class and a pioneer in her legal career. After graduating from the Law School, she served as a clerk to Judge Edward Jordan Dimock of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She also served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York; as an attorney in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General of the United States; as first assistant counsel for the New York State Moreland Act Commission on the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law; as associate counsel at the Museum of Modern Art; and as a senior attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell. Later, she served on the bench in the Southern District of New York for 29 years, presiding over dozens of high-profile cases, including the sentencing of Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to an attempted car bomb attack in New York City's Times Square. Judge Cedarbaum was a friend to many in our community, a loyal supporter of the Law School, and an example and inspiration for generations of faculty and graduates."

Judge Cedarbaum is survived by her two sons, Daniel Goldman Cedarbaum (Caryn Jacobs) and Jonathan Goldman Cedarbaum (Alice Winkler), her four grandchildren, Jacob Cedarbaum, Samuel Goldman Cedarbaum, Louis Cedarbaum and Dahlia Cedarbaum, and by her companion Bob Ehrenbard.

The funeral service is planned for Tuesday, February 9, at 11:30 a.m., at Park Avenue Synagogue, 50 East 87th Street in Manhattan. Burial will immediately follow the funeral service, at Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens.