Born: 11 August 1941, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Elizabeth Holtzman is an accomplished American lawyer and politician. Holtzman served in the United States House of Representatives for New York’s 16th district from 1973 to 1981. She was also Kings County’s district attorney from 1982 to 1989 and New York City’s 40th Comptroller from 1990 to 1993.
In 2022, Holtzman sought the Democratic nomination for New York’s 10th district but failed.
Holtzman excelled academically, graduating with honors from Radcliffe College in 1961 and Harvard Law School in 1965. She stood out as one of 15 women in her law school class of 500. At Harvard, Holtzman joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, working on civil rights cases in Georgia and for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
In 1984, Holtzman joined a group to search for Josef Mengele in Paraguay. President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records group. In 2013, she was part of a panel reviewing the military’s handling of sexual assault cases. In 2014, she briefly served on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, resigning over the Mexico–United States border separation policy.