Michael Wildes

Wildes' paternal grandfather, Harry Wildes, was a retail store owner who immigrated to the United States from Białystok, Poland, in 1920.

His maternal grandfather, Max Schoenwalter, owned a paint company and escaped Nazi Germany in the late 1930s to immigrate to the United States.

Schoenwalter was instrumental in the creation of the Queens Jewish Center.

Wildes' mother, Ruth Schoenwalter Wildes, was a prominent member of the Jewish community in Forest Hills, New York, where she lived and raised her family.

She reportedly inspired the creation of the Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE), which was established in her memory.

MJE hosts the annual Ruth B.. Wildes Memorial Lecture on her yahrtzeit (Jewish anniversary of her passing).

The memorial lecture has been given by Jonathan Sacks, Alan Dershowitz, Meir Soloveichik, Jacob J. Schacter, Norman Lamm, Adin Steinsaltz, Shlomo Riskin, Malcolm Hoenlein, and several other notable speakers.

He was awarded both a J.D. and an LL.M from NYU Law School and went on to open his own law firm, Wildes and Weinberg PC, in 1960.

Michael Jay Wildes (born November 27, 1964) is an American immigration lawyer and politician who serves as the 38th and current Mayor of Englewood, New Jersey.

Wildes was born on November 27, 1964, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

He was raised in Forest Hills, Queens.

Wildes is a graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he currently teaches immigration law as an adjunct professor.

Leon Wildes attracted worldwide fame in 1972 when he successfully defended John Lennon and Yoko Ono from a deportation attempt by the US government.

A community activist since the age of 14, Wildes was an auxiliary police officer with the New York Police Department from 1982 to 1992, during which time he was also a member of Community Board 6, a member of the Local Claims and Adjudication Board of New York State, and a candidate for Democratic District Leader of the 28th Assembly District of New York State.

Wildes received a B.A. magne cum laude in political science from Queens College of the City University of New York in January 1986, and earned a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in June 1989.

As an undergraduate at Queens College, Wildes was awarded honors in political science from the Queen's College Division of Social Sciences, and was elected to Pi Sigma Alpha (a national political science honors society).

He also made the Dean's list.

His State Bar Admissions include New York, New Jersey, and Washington D.C.

In 1989, he became a federal prosecutor for the United States Attorney's Office, where he participated in several high-profile cases, including a corruption case involving former U.S. Congressman Mario Biaggi.

In 1993, Wildes joined the law firm Wildes and Weinberg PC, where he represented several defectors who had provided difficult to obtain national security information to the United States, as well as high-profile immigrant parents who had been separated from their children.

Wildes also obtained visas, green cards, and helped navigate the naturalization process for his foreign clients, including artists, athletes, models, and businesspeople.

Ruth Wildes died of breast cancer in 1995.

Wildes' father, Leon Wildes, is an American Jewish lawyer who was born and raised in Olyphant, Pennsylvania.

He studied the Bible at Yeshiva College, where he obtained a bachelor's degree with magna cum laude honors.

In 1998, Wildes was elected to the Englewood, New Jersey City Council, serving two terms until 2003.

He testified in front of Congress about anti-terrorism legislation in 1999, at the request of U.S. Representative Rob Andrews.

A member of the Democratic Party, Wildes served as a Federal Prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York and as a City Councilman for Englewood before he was elected mayor in 2003.

In 2003, Wildes ran for Mayor of the City of Englewood, New Jersey, a position he held for two terms from 2004 to 2010.

Wildes was raised in a high-achieving Modern Orthodox Jewish home in the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam (Hebrew: תיקון עולם, "fixing the world").

His brother, Mark, is a Rabbi.

Wildes began volunteering with his local chevra kadisha (Aramaic: חברא קדישא, "holy society"), a group of men and women who ensure that dead bodies are properly buried according to Jewish law, when he was 14.

He interned with Congressman Gary Ackerman and Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro when he was 18.

He previously served as the 36th Mayor of Englewood from 2004 to 2010.

He was reelected in 2006 and again in 2018.

A nationally recognized authority on American immigration law, Wildes has had success in defending the immigration rights of his clients, some of whom are celebrities.

Wildes is the managing partner of the law firm Wildes and Weinberg PC.

He also serves as immigration counsel to Davidoff Hutcher and Citron LLP, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

In 2016, Leon Wildes wrote a book, John Lennon vs. The USA, which recounted the details of the Lennon case.

Michael wrote the book's foreword.

He is also a longtime professor of law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.