Mr. Louis Geffen, age 96, of Atlanta, died January 23, 2001. Born on November 1, 1904, Louis Geffen lived on the lower East Side of New York, where his father Rabbi Tobias Geffen led a small congregation. Since 1910, Louis Geffen has lived in Atlanta, the "Gate City of the South", where his father became the rabbi of the Shearith Israel Congregation on Hunter Street (now MLK Drive).

Living in the shadow of the Georgia State Capitol and the Fulton Tower, Louis and his younger brother Sam were stoned and cursed as they walked to school on the morning after Leo Frank was lynched in August 1915. This experience seemed to have stirred a spirit of resistance within him, which he possessed even to the last days of his life.

Upon graduating Boys High School in 1920, Louis Geffen matriculated at Emory University. Studying there from January 1921 to May 1923, he completed a BA with honors, perhaps the shortest time it ever took an Emory student to finish a regular undergraduate course of study. He paid for his legal studies at Columbia University Law School in New York by teaching in the religious school of the Hebrew Institutional Synagogue.

Upon receiving his JD in 1927, Louis returned to Atlana where he practiced law until 1989. In 1933, Louis Geffen and his brother, assisted their father in persuading Governor Eugene Talmadge to release an innocent Jewish prisoner from the Georgia Chain Gang. That incident, now known as the "Matzah Pardon" is recalled in the American Heritage Haggadah.

In May 1940, Geffen won the major case of his career, "Lumberman's Casualty Company vs Clarence Griggs." In that decision the Georgia Supreme Court reversed the lower courts' ruling in regard to awarding workman's compensation to a man injured on the job. The outcome of that case necessitated a change in Georgia law. For years in the legal circles of this state, that case was known as "Louie Geffen's triumph."
From January 1941 until March 1946, Louis Geffen served as a judge advocate in the US Army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Most of his assignments were in the United States, but after the Atomic Bombs were dropped he was sent as a part of a military government team to join General Douglas McArthur, first in Manila and then in Japan. Because there was no chaplain aboard ship, Geffen conducted Rosh Hashanah services for 120 Jewish personnel. While in Manila, he organized the campaign to raise funds to rebuild the synagogue that had been used as a storehouse for Japanese armaments and then destroyed. In Japan, stationed in Yokahma, Geffen led a legal team in preparing the prosecution of General Homa, "The Little Glass Eye", one of the earliest trials of a Japanese war criminal. The verdict was cited in papers around the world.

After returning to Atlanta in 1946, with his wife and son, he began the practice of law once again, "his second career" as he dubbed it. From 1927-1940, and again from 1946-1954, Louis Geffen served as pro bono counsel for Shearith Israel Congregation. He assisted in location of the site for the new synagogue building on University Drive and arranged for its purchase. For several years he conducted services on the High Holidays and the Sabbath, and after serving as a board member for half a century he was elected an honorary board member.

In the 1960's Geffen worked with his father and his son in preparing the English translation of the Jewish legal responsum authored in 1935 by Rabbi Tobias Geffen on the issue of whether "Coca Cola was Kosher and Kosher for Passover." That translation and his biography of his father appeared in "Lev Tuviah," in 1988.

Geffen was a participant in many different organizations throughout his life, serving as an officer of the Zionist Organization of America, as president of the Southeastern Region of Young Judea, a Vice Chairman of the Atlanta School Board and Commander of the Jewish War Veterans Post 112.

After courting Anna Birshtein of Norfolk, Virginia by mail for 10 months, they were married on December 26, 1934. Anna and Louis just celebrated their 66th anniversary at the William Breman Jewish Home, where they have resided in recent years. His greatest love was his wife, who followed him to military camps throughout the four years of his service stateside during World War II. He encouraged all of her poetic, culinary and social efforts, which made their years together ones of constant enthusiasm and neverending excitement.

Since he and his son David shared the same birthday, Louis was very pleased that his son accomplished all that he did, especially that David became a rabbi. Rita, his daughter-in-law, was very devoted to him. The 70th birthday surprise party she gave for him in 1974 was one of the most enjoyable days of his long life. Her Hebraic expertise and outstanding academic record gave him an enormous sense of pride.

In the last thirty years of his life, Louis watched his grandchildren, Avie, Elissa and Tuvia, grow into adulthood, first in the USA and then in Israel. He kept a scrapbook of all their achievements close at hand and their pictures in Israel military uniforms decorated his walls. His grandchildren are living out his dreams of the building of the land of Israel.

The Geffen family, with six Emory graduates, earned more degrees from the school than any other family in the school's history. Louis and his wife Anna turned over all their archival holdings, printed materials, images, and objects to the Special Collections Division of the Woodruff Library of Emory Univesity as the basis of the "Geffen Family Papers." In 1998, on the 75th anniversary of his graduation from Emory, Louis was awarded a citation by William Chace, President of Emory University. Chace cited Geffen as a "venerable and faithful alumnus who brought great luster to his alma mater."
Louis Geffen worked with his parents and siblings in locating the three family survivors of the Holocaust after World War II. He was always a devoted son, who cared deeply for his parents and had great respect for family. A lover of Atlanta, an outstanding student, a noted jurist, a true American and Jewish patriot, and a dedicated and observant Jew, Louis Geffen leaves an important legacy in the annals of Southern legal and religious history.

Louis Geffen is survived by his wife, Anna Geffen, Atlanta; son and daughter-in-law, Rabbi David and Rita Geffen, Scranton, PA; brother, Rabbi Samuel Geffen, New York City; sisters, Bessie Wilensky, Chicago, Annette Raskas, St. Louis, and Helen Ziff, Jerusalem, Israel; brother, Dr. Abraham Geffen, New Rochelle, NY; grandchildren, Avie Geffen, Elissa and Chemi Burg, Tuvia and Keren Geffen; and four great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be held today January 25, 2001 at 12:00 noon at Congregation Shearith Israel with Rabbi Mark Kunis officiating. Interment will follow at Greenwood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Congregation Shearith Israel, Special Collections Division of the Woodruff Library at Emory University, or Temple Israel, 918 E. Gibson St., Scranton, PA 18510. Arrangements by Dressler and Ghertner of Jewish Funeral Care by SouthCare Memorial Chapel. 770-437-0095.