Nicholas Kittrie

Nicholas Nehemiah Kittrie who taught law for over 50 years, 1964 to 2015, to more than 10,000 law students in the nation’s capital and also is remembered as the last surviving family member to have known Leon Felhendler, the noted co-leader of the 1943 Sobibor Death Camp uprising, died on December 9, 2019.

Kittrie was the longest tenured professor at American University’s Washington College of Law (WCL) and a frequently-traveling scholar of international comparative and criminal law. He served as Law School Dean from 1977-80, and was a pioneer in legal education, making it possible for law students to counsel inmates in federal prison by founding the LAWCOR Program (Lawyers in Corrections), the first such law school student clinic in the U.S. He also developed overseas law school summer programs which operated in London, Warsaw, Moscow and Jerusalem. He wrote and edited more than 15 books. He was a member of Vice President George Bush’s Task Force on Terrorism and was a member and former chair of the United Nations Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. In 1992, he and the Washington College of Law sponsored a seminal symposium that brought together American scholars on the U.S. Constitution and opinion leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a Member of Congress, to share recommendations with constitution writers from the Republic of South Africa who would go on to introduce an Interim constitution in 1993 and, ultimately, the Parliamentarily-approved fifth South African Constitution in 1994, still in effect, adopted at the end of apartheid, that introduced universal adult suffrage, constitutional supremacy and a bill of rights.

“Professor Kittrie was a preeminent scholar who contributed to the evolution of international comparative and criminal law,” said Congressman Jamie Raskin, U.S. Representative from Maryland’s 8th District and former Washington College of Law colleague. “He was known across the globe for his original thinking and passion for justice and equity under the law.”

“He encouraged his students to think critically and wanted them to challenge assumptions, because he was confident that they would be the leaders of tomorrow,”

said Connie Morella, former Ambassador to the OECD, U.S. Representative, and spouse of Kittrie’s long-time WCL professorial colleague Tony Morella. “He taught law for more than 50 years. He helped to shape and influence the developing minds of more than two generations of attorneys, legal practitioners and thought leaders, not just in the Washington, D.C. area, but around the world.”

Born Nehemiah Kronenberg in Bilgoraj, Poland, as a young child he frequently spent time with his maternal uncle Leon (Leib) Felhendler, who would later co-lead the October 1943 uprising from the Sobibor Death Camp, one of just two large-scale, armed rebellions during World War II led by prisoners enslaved at Nazi death camps. As a direct result of the outbreak by roughly 300 prisoners, the extermination camp was ordered closed and paved over, within months. After his family emigrated to pre-Israel Palestine, as a teenager Kittrie served as a personal aide for British Gen. Orde Wingate, a renowned World War II military leader, while in Cairo. On account of his Zionism and innovative, strategic brilliance, Wingate was a lifelong inspiration for Kittrie. For decades, Kittrie partnered with the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, to be a keynote speaker alongside dignitaries from the Israeli, British and Ethiopian embassies at an annual graveside memorial service for Gen. Wingate, held at Arlington National Cemetery.

Kittrie earned LL.B and M.A. degrees from the University of Kansas School of Law in Lawrence, KS, followed by a prestigious fellowship to the University of Chicago School of Law. He was appointed as counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, through the sponsorship of Senator Alexander Wiley (Wis., R) to serve as Special Counsel to its Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver (Tenn, D). He received his LL.M and S.J.D (doctoral degree in law) from Georgetown University School of Law. He served as president of the American Society of Criminology (ASC), a particular honor because past ASC presidents came from the fields of sociology and criminology. Kittrie’s news analyses and commentaries were published widely over the years, including in the Washington Post, New York Times, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal and the Kansas City Star. Over the past two decades, as his uncle’s WWII heroism was increasingly noted for its historical significance, Kittrie accepted medals of recognition on behalf of the family from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and from the Government of Poland.

Inspired by Felhendler, Gen. Wingate and others like them, Kittrie, throughout his career, represented the underdog, the downtrodden, minorities, revolutionaries, radicals and alternative thinkers as well as the more mainstream, whether in the court room, hearing room, or the court of public opinion.

In 2015, the Washington College of Law designated him a Distinguished University Professor, the first and only in the Law School’s history, as well as Professor of Law Emeritus. He was inducted into the Founder's Circle of the Georgetown University Law Center, was recognized as an Outstanding Career Alumni by the University of Kansas School of Law, and two of his books have been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes. One of his edited volumes, "The Tree of Liberty: A Documentary History of Rebellion and Political Crime in America" (Co-edited with Eldon Wedlock, Jr.) in 1986 earned the critical recognition of being "The Best Book in Law" from the Association of American Publishers. His most cited and influential work, The Right To Be Different: Deviance and Enforced Therapy, took a multi-disciplinary approach bridging law, sociology and psychiatry in its evaluation of the history, origins and characteristics of the modern therapeutic state. He was a member of the Cosmos Club, a member of the Charitable Order of St. John of Jerusalem Hospitallers, and a member of the University of Bridgeport Board of Directors.

Professor Kittrie is survived by his wife Sara (Yudovich), three children (Orde Kittrie, Norda Kittrie Levin and Zachary Kittrie), six grandchildren (Julian Levin, Jordan Levin, Ari Kittrie, Gabriella Kittrie, Theodore Kittrie and Truman Kittrie) and two nieces (Smadar Grossman and Nitza Shaham both of Israel). Contributions in his name are being accepted by the Friends of Yemin Orde (now, Impact Israel) at www.Impact-Israel.org. The Village of Yemin Orde is a home, school and safe haven for at-risk immigrant youth from around the world, many from Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, Brazil, France and Israel-born. A public memorial at the Washington College of Law will be held at a later date.