Matthew Solomson blazes trail as first Orthodox Jewish chief judge

Matthew Solomson blazes trail as first Orthodox Jewish chief judge

When Judge Matthew Solomson’s great-grandfather came to the United States from Russia in the early 1900s, seeking a haven from the state-sanctioned antisemitism that plagued Europe, he was so scarred by the way his government had treated Jews that he would cross the street whenever he saw a police officer. “My dad remembers his grandfather behaving that way because of a generalized fear of the state and authority,” Solomson recounted. Now, just …