News & Newsletters

*News*

September 2026 – JHU Modern Jewish History Professor James Loeffler cites Bessie Margolin and Fair Labor Lawyer  in his new book, Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America.

October 2, 2025 – Rebecca Chao, “Overlooked No More: Bessie Margolin, Lawyer Who Turned Workers’ Hopes Into Law,” The New York Times

August 4, 2025 – Rachel Fink, “This Forgotten Jewish Orphanage in the American South Raised ‘The Most Fortunate Unfortunates,'” Haaretz.

June 2025 – Marlene Trestman wins American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Award (for Excellence in American Jewish History) for article about U.S. Jewish orphanages in B’nai B’rith Magazine (“American Jewish Orphanages Housed Most Fortunate Unfortunates,” Winter 2024). Read about the Rockower Awards here. Read the winning article here.

April 2025 – January 2026 – Special Exhibition, Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, New Orleans, LA

March 2025 – Southern Jewish Life Magazine, “New MSJE exhibit explores history of regional Jewish Orphans’ Home in New Orleans”

November 2024 – Anne Gessler, “Book Review: Most Fortunate Unfortunates,” Journal of Southern History

Fall 2024 – Reena Sigman Friedman, “Book Review: Most Fortunate Unfortunates.” Southern Jewish History

July 5, 2024 – Ellen Braunstein, “Documenting a Historic Jewish Orphanage with Marlene Trestman.” Baltimore Jewish Times.

June 2, 2024: Barbara Sims, Review: “The Story of the Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans a factual and fascinating read.” The Advocate.

May 1, 2024: National Book Review’s “Hot 5 Books of The Week: #3 Most Fortunate Unfortunates”

February 22, 2024: Deb Silverthorn, “DJHS Creates Debra Polsky Scholarship: March 10 event hosts Jewish Orphans’ Home history author.” Texas Jewish Post.

October 2023 – “Trestman’s history of NOLA Jewish Orphans’ Home published.” Southern Jewish Life Magazine.

October 25, 2023 –Watch book launch lecture at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience

October 20, 2023 – John Pope, “Marlene Trestman Remembers New Orleans Jewish Orphans’ Home,” www.nola.com

October 2023 – Q&A With Deborah Kalb

October 2023 – Interview by Susan Larson of WWNO’s “The Reading Life.” Listen here.

October 2023 – Simone Ellin, “Winds of Fortune: New Book by Local Author Explores the Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans,” JMore Living Magazine (Baltimore Jewish Living). Read here.

August 2023 – Conversation with Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO, B’nai B’rith International. Watch the video here.

Sept. 2022 – CSPAN Classroom releases a video-based lesson plan featuring Marlene’s presentation to the Supreme Court Historical Society about Fair Labor Lawyer.

June 2022 – Trestman publishes “Women Advocates Before the Supreme Court” for the Supreme Court Historical Society featuring the list of all women to present arguments to the nation’s highest court.

June 2021 – Jewish Women’s Archive adds Marlene’s entry about Bessie Margolin to the Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.
Nov. 2020 – MSJE Curator Anna Tucker interviews Marlene about the Home.

March 2020 – LSU Press releases Fair Labor Lawyer in paperback.

April 2019 – Read Marlene’s article: “New Orleans’s Jewish Orphans’ Home: Some New York Connections,” Dorot – The Journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Spring 2019, 8-11.

April 2018 – Listen to “The Fair Labor Lawyer Bessie Margolin,” What’sHerName Podcast.

Nov. 2017 – Watch Marlene Trestman’s “Lagniappe Lecture” about Bessie Margolin’s contributions to the Nazi War Crimes Trials in Nuremberg, National World War II Museum, New Orleans LA.

July 2017 – Watch the video: “The Audacious Bessie Margolin: Trailblazing Lawyer.” Rebecca Lubetkin, Morris County New Jersey National Organization for Women, interviews Marlene Trestman on New Directions for Women.

March 2017 – Marcia Coyle, “726 Women Carve a Legacy at Supreme Court Lecturn,” National Law Journal.” “Who are the women who have argued at the U.S. Supreme Court throughout history? Author Marlene Trestman wanted to know.”

January 2017 – Zeinab Bailoun, “The Legal Content Curator: Bessie Margolin and the Working Woman,” Ms. JD.

Sept. 2016 – In her Time Magazine article, “How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Found Her Voice, Katy Steinmetz quotes Marlene Trestman’s research about women who argue at the Supreme Court.

​Sept. 2016 – Jewish Women International picks Fair Labor Lawyer among top seven books about Women Worth Knowing.

Sept. 2016 – Watch the video: The Supreme Court Historical Society’s Clare Cushman interviews author Marlene Trestman on her new book, “Fair Labor Lawyer.”

Sept. 2016 – Tulane University Acquires Bessie Margolin Papers; Biographer Marlene Trestman Organized Collection and Authored Finding Aid, Louisiana Resource Collection Newsletter.

August 2016 – Bella Book, “Breaking Glass Ceilings: Bessie Margolin and ‘The Woman Card,'” Jewish Women’s Archive.

Summer 2016 – Connie Savitt Sandler, “Bessie Margolin: A Woman Ahead of Her Time,” Alpha Epsilon Phi Columns Magazine, Summer 2016: 19-21. 

July 2016 – Suzanne Monyak, “Q&A with Marlene Trestman on Fair Labor Lawyer: ​SCOTUS Advocate Bessie Margolin Finds Place in History,” National Law Journal. 

July 2016 – Marlene Trestman, “Willebrandt, Carloss, Margolin and Rosenberg: Four 20th Century Superstars of the Supreme Court Bar,”Women Lawyers Journal (National Association of Women Lawyers) 101, no. 2 (July 2016): 18-23. 

June 2016 – Listen to Mark Klobas of New Books Network interview Marlene about her biography of Bessie Margolin, Fair Labor Lawyer.

​June 2016 – Watch Marlene Trestman’s presentation about Bessie Margolin at the FDR Presidential Library’s Roosevelt Reading Festival on C-SPAN BookTV. 

May 2016 – Watch C-SPAN Book TV’s coverage of the Gaithersburg Book Festival’s Trailblazing Women Panel, featuring Bessie Margolin biographer, Marlene Trestman, and Mary McGrory biographer, John Norris. Moderated by MD Senator Cheryl Kagan.

April 2016 – Oxford University Press Publishes Marlene Trestman’s biography of Bessie Margolin in American National Biography Online.

April 2016 – Mike Slater Show, 760 KFMB AM San Diego: Biographer of the Week: Marlene Trestman,  Listen to the Interview.

April 2016 – Marlene Trestman, “Commentary: Bessie Margolin – Equal Pay Champion,” The Daily Record.

April 2016 – Leah Eskin, “Q & A: The Pioneering Female Lawyer Who Went From An Orphan’s Home to the Supreme Court,” The National Book Review. 

March 2016 – Tom Hall and Rob Sivack, “Bessie Margolin: A Chronicle of A Remarkable Life,” 88.1 FM WYPR Maryland Public Radio – Listen to the Interview.

March 2016 – Hanna Neier, “Fair Labor Lawyer: Bessie Margolin’s Journey from New Orleans Orphanage to Supreme Court Advocate,” Lilith.

March 2016 – Stephen H. Sachs, “Bessie Margolin: a lawyer, feminist and mentor,” The Baltimore Sun. Op-ed: Baltimore lawyer Marlene Trestman writes Supreme Court advocate Bessie Margolin back into history.

March 2016 – “When Two Stories Intertwine: EMBA graduate pens biography of Supreme Court advocate,” Loyola University Magazine.

March 2016 – Alan Smason, “JCRS Honoree Trestman’s ‘Fair Labor Lawyer’ Being Released by LSU Press,” Crescent City Jewish News

​March 2016 – Susan Larson, The Reading Life with Marlene Trestman, WWNO 89.9 New Orleans Public Radio – Listen to the interview (begins at 9:12). 

March 2016 – Jewish Children’s Regional Service Honors Former Aid Recipient and Author Marlene Trestman at its Annual Gala. Watch the video of Trestman’s remarks.

March 2016 – Cari Stein of PBS To the Contrary interviews Marlene about “Trailblazing Attorney Bessie Margolin” – Watch Cari Stein interview Marlene.

March 2016 – Cate Root,  “Author Chronicles Accomplishments of Lawyer Bessie Margolin,”  The New Orleans Advocate

February 2016 -Guest Blog, “The Parallel Lives of Two Jewish Orphans: Bessie Margolin and Her Biographer, Marlene Trestman,” Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

June 2013 – Washington, D.C.: On June 28, 2013, as part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Centennial Events, Marlene Trestman presents the Donald S. Shire Lecture, named in honor of Bessie Margolin’s distinguished protege who retired in 2006. ​

June 2013 – Trestman receives the Supreme Court Historical Society’s Hughes-Gossett Literary Prize for her article on the career of Bessie Margolin. 

Summer/Fall 2012 – Julie Steinbacher, “The Little Girl From New Orleans,” Goucher Quarterly, 24-29 (reprinted with permission of Goucher College).