MANN, THEODORE R.

MANN, THEODORE R. (1928– ), U.S. attorney and communal leader. Mann was born in Czechoslovakia, and came   to the U.S. with his parents in 1929. After studying at various yeshivot in New York, he graduated from Pennsylvania State University and Temple University's School of Law. He was the editor of Temple University's Temple Law Quarterly. He clerked in the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and then taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. For 31 years he was a senior partner at the law firm of Mann, Ungar, Spector … Labovitz, concentrating on securities fraud litigation, anti-trust litigation, and other complex commercial issues. Mann played a leading role in several major civil rights and church-state separation cases. He successfully argued cases involving the admissions policy of Girard College and challenges to Bible reading in the public schools. He also argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Lemon v. Sloan, a case challenging public aid to parochial schools, and in several Sunday "blue law" cases. Mann joined the Wolf Block law firm, serving as Of Counsel in the Business Litigation Practice Group in the company's Philadelphia office. Long active in Jewish communal affairs, he served as president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia and of the Greater Philadelphia Council of the American Jewish Congress and as national vice president of the Congress. He was also chairman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the Israel Task Force of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council. Mann succeeded Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler as president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, holding office until 1980. He also held official positions with the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, the American Jewish Congress, and the Executive Committee of the Israel Policy Forum. He was the founding chairman of Project Nishma and of Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger. In 2000, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs presented Mann with the Albert Chernin Award for his "exemplary voluntary service to the field of Jewish community relations and the leading role he has taken in defending the First Amendment and religious freedoms for all Americans." (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)