Joseph “Joe” Levin of Silver Spring, a World War II veteran, native Washingtonian and trial lawyer who practiced for more than 50 years, died on Nov. 2 at age 103.
When Levin talked about his years as a criminal defense attorney in Washington, D.C., he returned most often to the cases where the stakes were life or death. He told his children – Alyn, Mark, Sandra and Frank – that defending someone facing execution carried a weight he never forgot. “He never lost a capital case,” his daughter Alyn Hadar said. “Anyone he represented was never put to death.”
His son Mark Levin said his father was “very proud of that fact,” not as a boast, but because it reflected what he believed about justice.
Joe was born in Washington to parents who had fled persecution in Russia and ran a tailor shop on Mount Pleasant Street. Both were tailors, and their shop served senators, congressional representatives, first lady Grace Coolidge and other prominent Washingtonians. The family lived on Irving Street in a Jewish neighborhood near the National Zoo. Most of Joe’s friends were Jewish, and he spent time around the D.C. Jewish Community Center on 16th Street.
He attended Central High School, now the Cardozo Education Campus, and was known for his abilities in math as well as his involvement in the school’s cadet corps. The cadets, Mark Levin said, made a lasting impression: “There were a fair number of Jews who were cadets, which I think always belied the canard that Jews didn’t serve in the military or didn’t want to serve in the military.”
After graduating in 1940, Levin attended the University of Maryland where he planned to become an engineer. However, after Pearl Harbor in 1941, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He had trained for the infantry, but poor eyesight kept him stateside. Because of his strong math skills, he studied and worked alongside groups of mathematicians on Army programs.
He attended various universities during his stint in the military. He later described his service as ordinary, but his children said it meant a great deal to him. Hadar said he carried his World War II discharge document in his wallet for the rest of his life. “He loved being an American,” she said. “His time in the military meant a lot to him.”
After World War II, Levin changed direction and pursued a degree at George Washington University Law School. He entered the legal profession at a time when large Washington firms still limited the number of Jewish attorneys they hired. “He strongly identified as being Jewish,” Mark Levin said. “Growing up in a segregated city, he felt the sting of antisemitism, and that helped shape his adult life.”
Levin opened his own law office in 1949 and became part of the group of “Fifth Street lawyers” practicing near the D.C. Courthouse. He later moved his office to the Investment Building and eventually to K Street. He practiced continuously for more than five decades, focusing on criminal defense, but also handling real estate, wills and other matters for longtime clients.
Washington remained segregated into the early 1960s, and Levin’s work reflected the city’s divisions. Hadar described the era as one in which Black and white riders could sit together on buses but not in theaters or restaurants, and where schools remained segregated. Levin took on civil rights cases and represented many African American clients on a range of legal matters. “He was always a great believer in equality,” Mark Levin said. “I think that’s what drew him to the law.”
He had a longstanding opposition to the death penalty. Mark Levin said his father saw capital punishment as something that did not solve the problem of violence and believed everyone deserved a full and fair defense. His record in those cases became a defining part of how his children remembered his career.
Outside the courtroom, Levin’s life was centered on his marriage to Betty Burak and the family they built together. He met her at a dance at the DCJCC after the war, and they married in the 1940s. They raised their four children and later settled at Summit Hill apartments, then a predominately Jewish community. Both lived past 100, and Betty worked into her 90s as a bookkeeper in a wine and liquor business owned by cousins.
The Levins’ Jewish identity remained central throughout their life. The children grew up attending Beth Sholom Congregation in Washington, now of Potomac, and their sons celebrated their bar mitzvahs there.
At home, Joe Levin emphasized reading and education. “Every Wednesday, he would take us to the library and we would pick out books,” Hadar said. In later years, after macular degeneration made reading difficult, he relied on recorded books from libraries. He told his daughter he found it remarkable how imagination worked when he listened instead of read. He remained mentally sharp and active until shortly before his final hospitalization.
His children described him as serious and sometimes stern, but devoted to family and the values he believed in. “He always had a soft spot for the underdog,” Mark Levin said. “He always tried very hard to teach us to do the right thing.”
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.
