Lynn e Abraham
and the
Power of Persistence
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
Lynne Abraham
during her
2015 mayoral
campaign Courtesy of Jewish
Federation of Greater
Philadelphia L
ynne Abraham doesn’t quit.

In the midst of a global pandemic, the 79-year-old former Philadelphia District
Attorney has commandeered her dining room table so that she can work from home.

Social distancing has limited interviews to phone calls and email, but she paints a
picture with her words.

“My dining room table is a dog’s breakfast — the same as any desk I’ve ever sat
behind,” she noted.

Abraham is a partner at the law fi rm Archer & Greiner, P.C. Th is might come as a
surprise to the fi rms who refused to hire women in 1965, the year she graduated from
Temple Law School as one of two women in her class and had diffi culty fi nding work.

Even more surprising might be her four terms as the city’s DA and her 2015 mayoral
campaign. 6
MAY 14, 2020
THE GOOD LIFE
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



She knew the odds were against her in many of her
professional endeavors. It never stopped her from trying.

“I ran for something that I wanted, but was aware that it was
highly unlikely I would be successful,” she said of her campaign.

“But I’m a risk taker. Whether it’s Mozart or a scientist or Elon
Musk, you don’t advance by being comfortable. You take a risk.”
Her risk-taking approach played a big role in her decision to
launch an investigation into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic
Church in 2000. That, and her love of newspapers.

“I was and am an inveterate newspaper reader. I do not get
my news from the television,” she explained. Her go-to sources
include The New York Times and The Washington Post, and
occasionally the Miami Herald and San Francisco Chronicle.

“Since I read a lot of newspapers, I happened to see quite
often, at the bottom of the page, no more than an inch, two
inches at most, a Catholic priest being relieved from his duties
due to sexual abuse of a minor, a child,” she said.

She started reading about more widely publicized cases of
sexual abuse in Louisiana and Boston.

“I thought, it can’t just be it happened in these places, it must
be happening here too. We ought to look into this.”
“I’m a risk taker. Whether it’s Mozart
or a scientist or Elon Musk, you don’t
advance by being comfortable.

You take a risk.”
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For hearing impaired: 267-331-4243 (Sorenson VP)
At the same time Abraham was learning of these cases,
the Inquirer published an article in which Cardinal Anthony
Bevilacqua claimed there were only 36 priests credibly accused
of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“They put the story out and I said, ‘That didn’t sound right,’”
Abraham said. “So I spoke to the men and women in my office
and I put together a team of investigative attorneys and support
staff and I announced that I would submit the investigation to
the grand jury.”
The reaction was explosive.

“You would have thought I’d dropped a bomb on the city of
Philadelphia,” she recalled. “The church has always exerted a
very strong force, and I believe Roman Catholicism is still the
leading religious affiliation that people subscribe to. Many public
officials were Catholic, and they called me up and chewed me
out. Called me a Jew, told me that my career was over.”
Nevertheless, she persisted.

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www.GoldsteinsFuneral.com See Abraham, Page 8
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM THE GOOD LIFE
MAY 14, 2020
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