BRUDNO, EZRA (1877-12 Dec. 1954), attorney and author, was one of the most notable Jewish writers in Cleveland during the first 2 decades of the 20th century. Born in Lithuania to Isaac and Hannah (Model) Brudno, he was educated in a private European school and brought to America in 1891 by his parents. He continued his studies at CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, Yale University, and Western Reserve University, receiving a law degree. Brudno began his law practice in 1900 and continued to practice until his retirement in 1949. Soon after entering the legal profession, he began writing. By 1910, he had 3 novels published: The Fugitive, The Tether, and The Little Conscript. In addition, his fiction and nonfiction were published in national magazines such as Lippincott's and locally in the Jewish Review & Observer. Although some of Brudno's fiction advocated shielding the young from the influence of America, he promoted the assimilation of Jews into western civilization in his nonfiction. He wrote that there was little, if anything, of value in Judaism and Jewish culture worth preserving. In 1920, he published a novel about the legal profession, The Jugglers, which met with little success. Fifteen years later, he wrote his only full-length piece of nonfiction, Ghost of Yesterday: A Reappraisal of Moral Values and of Accepted Standards in This Changing World.
Brudno married Rose Hess and had two children: Lincoln and Emily. He died in his home in SHAKER HTS.