Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion With Justice Ruth Bader Gin

Badere Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg said she has to plans offered some career advice for young women. This is just under a hour and a half. [crowd noise] rabbi holtzblatt good evening. Welcome. My name is rabbi lauren holtzblatt. What is your name . [laughter] we are absolutely thrilled to have you here tonight. [applause] we primarily measure our increasing growth not by how many people walked through the doors, but by the capacity and openness of our hearts. Our hearts has four chambers. Four core practices that obligate us. We are loving kindness in which we take care of each other at every stage in life. We are justice in which were obligated to redefine the very we of who is in this world. These walls may protect us but mostly theyre meant to come down so there can be all of us. We are prayer. We pray like our life depends on it and we work first fiercely is as if our prayers do not matter. Lastly, we are sacred text. We never stop plumbing their depths of it wisdom that continues to and the middle. Rabbi holtzblatt you dont have to be a member to join us. Just come. Join us for meditation and prayer, come and have a conversation and coffee. We actually have good coffee. So, you came here tonight for Justice Ginsburg, a hero, an absolute hero. [applause] rabbi holtzblatt we could not think of someone to be with us at this particular time were experiencing in our country. It is a dark moment. She represents everything we want to be fighting for. For those that are marginalized, for a womans voice and the public sphere, of the Justice System for equity it any quality. For everything that we hold dear. For the second time, its an embarrassment of riches. For the second time we welcome pertinent to this. We relinquish it out of love and deep respect of who she is and what she brings into the world. I would like to introduce kathleen who sits on the board who herself is a remarkable human being, an incredible lawyer who has been fighting for equity and womens rights for over 30 years. Welcome. [applause] kathleen i would like i guess you have been welcomed, i just want to say a word about the forward what 120 years of fearless, progressive Workplace Fairness advocating journalism the forward has been for the last 120 years and counting. The forward is a mainstay of the progressive jewish community. We are here to celebrate that. I want to give a shout out to rachel. Can you stand up for a minute . [applause] Kathleen Rachel was the publisher of the forwarder. Jane eisner, this is a womanled organization. [applause] kathleen f youve ever heard an argument in the United States Supreme Court, you know that too is a woman led organization. Id like to ask Ruth Ginsburg and jane to come out before i say a few words about them. [applause] [cheering] [applause] thank you so much, but please be seated. I could say an awful lot about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ive had a lot of alternative plans, but yesterday, there was a prayer for ruth published. Did you happen to read it . You have been traveling. Its very short and i would like to read it. At a time as disquieting as this, when so many of us feel deflated, shaken, worried for the future, when we almost cant remember what its like to go a day without namecalling, without lies, harshness or callousness, when we are nostalgic for those years of complete sentences, dignified statesmanship, acts of empathy, we still look to you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, yeshiva girl turned legendary justice, rbg icon, fighter for the powerless and wronged. May you go from strength to strength because you have been hours. May you live many more years because you make the world brighter, fairer, kinder, because we need you. Youve helped us remain clear not just on the foundational principles of the nation, but on our jewish mandate to welcome the stranger and never stand idly by. The hebrew words in your office while in calligraphy read, justice, justice shall thou pursue. And you are certainly a justice who has pursued. You have and will keep trying, god bless Ruth Bader Ginsburg. [applause] and welcome jane eisner, the intrepid editor of the forward, my friend, my icon. Im happy to welcome both of you. [applause] thank you to everyone coming here. To those of you watching on facebook, we welcome you. It is such a thrill and a pleasure for me on behalf of my colleagues to participate in such an important event. In the last few weeks weve asked forward readers to send us their questions for Justice Ginsburg. The response has been overwhelming. We heard from readers across the country and overseas as well. Tonight i will quote from some of these questions in our conversation because they are brilliant and funny and a powerful reflective and how interested americans are in the United States Supreme Court and especially in this supreme Court Justice. I want to say at the outset that Justice Ginsburg has asked that we not discuss issues that are before the court or may be before the court. Of course, we are respecting that. Happily, there are so many other topics to talk about. Justice ginsburg, many readers of ours are interested in your jewish life and identity. And how it shaped your judicial career and your outlook. As we sit in this beautiful sanctuary, it seems like a good place to start. You grew up in brooklyn. A family that was not devout but very identified. Youve described your own mother, your beloved mother, lighting candles on friday nights and i have heard how you enjoyed celebrating passover with your family. He remarked that the four questions was the best part of the seder. Im wondering why. Justice ginsburg the youngest child is asking about this evening in this celebration. Why is passover night different from all other nights . The child is asking a question and the rest of the seder is to answering the childs question. I think it is just one of many illustrations of how jews are learning and want children to be welleducated. A couple of years ago with a rabbi you wrote about the heroic and visionary women in the passover story. Im wondering did you notice that when you were a girl . Or was that the kind of thing emerged later in life for you . The recognition of the role of women in the story . Justice ginsburg i think growing up i might have been known about mariam and moses mother, but i didnt know about midwives and pharaohs daughter, but there were no women in it. That is true. And so, you worked to make a difference in that regard. I understand that that was something you were aware of as a girl as well. Your limitations. The boys were having bar mitzvahs and girls were not. Your mother had very strict orthodox upbringing. Im wondering how that experience of being a girl at a time when girls and women had very little or no role in religious life, how did that affect you . Did it inspire you or was it something you wanted to change . Justice ginsburg of course i wanted to change it. I wanted a big party and get all those presents. I grew up with a cousin. We lived in the same household, two sisters married two brothers and we were like twins. He was bar mitzvahed and had this great party. He had all these gifts. I was very jealous. Later on in life ive read that you trace the jewish presence on the Supreme Court beginning with justice brandeis, but with judah benjamin, the first jew to be offered a seat in the United States Supreme Court. But who declined. In fact, he became the leader of the confederacy. Im wondering why do you start there in thinking about the jewish presence on the court . Justice ginsburg i dont think of benjamin as present on the court. They come in all sizes and shapes. Some are very good and some are not so good. Benjamin is an interesting character. Did have a jewish upbringing but out of the faith and his story is intriguing. He rose to the top of the ranks in the confederacy. The reason he turned down the appointment was he had just been chosen by the louisiana legislator to be the senator. Were days before the 17th amendment, so senators were chosen by the state legislature and not by direct vote. He thought all things considered, being a senator was a better job for him. He may have envisioned that if he had been on the court it wouldnt have been too many years before he had to resign. We have a question. Justice ginsburg i want to Say Something more. Although he was a leader of the confederacy, he was a slaveholder. He was subject to virulent antisemitism by others high in the ranks of the confederacy. They referred to him as judas iscariot. And i know we ran a story about confederate monuments because theres so much controversy but there is no monument to him even though he was leader of the confederacy. It may be because of what you just said, that he was treat ed among the other confederate leaders. Justice ginsburg they did have an exhibition about benjamin, and the museum in portland. Justice ginsburg justice it . Have you seen yes. Ce ginsburg i have a question from michael, a reader in georgia. He wondered how your jewishness has affected your lifes work as a lawyer, a law professor of a feminist, and a supreme Court Justice. Justice ginsburg perhaps i should start by saying i grew up in the shadow of world war ii and we came to know more and more of what was happening to the jews in europe. The sense of being an outsider, of being one of the people who had suffered oppression for no sensible reason, being a it makes you empathetic to other people who were not insiders, i would say that, and the love of learning. The sense of being a Minority Group that somehow has survived generations and generations. Of hatred and plundering. But i think of my own family. Father came to russia when he was 13. He never went to school in any country. My mother was the first person in her large family born in the usa. She was born four months after her mother arrived here. So she was conceived in the old world and born in the new world. Both of them, more than anything else wanted me to have a good education. That was number one on their list of what i should have. You mentioned growing up in the shadow of world war ii and the holocaust. Im wondering if that shaped your views of human rights and human rights law . Justice ginsburg its certainly a large part of it. I think you probably know that the holocaust was the beginning of the end of apartheid in america. We were fighting a war against odious racism and our own troops were rigidly separated by race. So when we are fighting a war against racism, how long could segregation in our own country persist . So i consider world war ii one of the major propelling forces to the brown v. Board of education education. So you see a connection between that and then what many of those africanamerican soldiers faced coming back to the states after they fought and came back as essentially secondclass citizens. Justice ginsburg yes. That is so interesting. You feel secure now as a jew, i sense. The beautiful poem we heard referenced the artwork that is on the walls of your chamber. Im wondering in your time on the court, how has it accommodated jewish tradition . Has that changed while you have been there . Justice ginsburg there hadnt been a jewish presence for some years until my appointment. The clerk of the Supreme Court came to see me very early on in my tenure and said im glad youre here because you can help me with the problem. The Supreme Courts admits lawyers to the Supreme Court are. Every year they would get half a dozen or more complaints from Orthodox Jews who said were so proud of our membership in the Supreme Court bar, but we cannot frame our certificate and put it on the wall because it says in the year of our lord so and so, and hes not our lord. I spoke to the chief about this. He said we will take it up in conference. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg in one of my colleagues whose name i will not discussed said in the year of our lord it was good enough for brandeis and goldberg and before he got there i said it is not good enough for ginsberg. [applause] Justice Ginsburg it took a while for the cycle to complete. At first they said for the Orthodox Jews we will have in the year so and so. We liked when it set on the certificate of the independence of the United States. So please keep that on our certificate. A certificate your membership in the Supreme Court, you have no choice. You can have just the year 2018, in the year of our lord or the independence of the United States. This is the way it should be. It is your choice what you want [applause] Justice Ginsburg that next was the great controversy. Sometimes they overlapped. So Justice Breyer and i asked Justice Kagan was not yet on the court. We asked the chief if the court could defer the sitting day. And the First Response was wait and confer on good friday and nobody complains about that. I would be happy to come thursday that week. Then the argument that was not really convincing for the chief was inevitably in a session there will be jewish lawyers. They worked so hard on this case. Do you want to take away from them the opportunity to present their case and require them to have a substitute . That resonated, and so now we dont sit on high holy days. [applause] one of our readers from cambridge, massachusetts, had an interesting question. He noted that you once described an opinion by israeli justice that forbid torture, even in what they call the ticking time bomb situation. You said you thought that opinion had tremendous persuasive value. Im wondering as an American Jewish jurist, do you feel any affinity for the work of the israeli Supreme Court . Justice ginsburg i feel a special affinity to the work of barack, hes one of the most brilliant jurists of our time. As you know, israel does not have a constitution. They have five basic laws. The israeli Supreme Court has a wealth of law to draw on. They have Ottoman Empire law, they have the heritage from the united kingdom. They have jewish law. The case that you mentioned, the socalled ticking bomb case, presented to the israeli Supreme Court this question, the police have apprehended a suspect they believe to know when and where a bomb is going off. Can we use extreme means, a euphemism for torture, to extract that information . In a very eloquent judgment written by thenpresident of the israeli Supreme Court, the answer was clear. Torture, never. And the opinion explained that there is no greater gift we can give to our enemy than to become so overwhelmed by our concern for security that more and more we come to resemble our enemy in our disrespect for human rights. [applause] i wonder if we can turn to your personal history for moment. Your sister, your only sibling, died when she was six and you were less than twoyearsold. Your mother was stricken with cancer during your first year of high school. And sadly died two days before your graduation. Im wondering how this affected your sense of wanting to support women and girls. And, in particular, i understand how much of an inspiration your mother was. Im wondering if you can tell us a little bit about that. Justice ginsburg my mother was a hugely intelligent woman. She emphasized two things. One was that i should be a lady, and by that she did not mean fancy dress. What she meant is be in control of your emotions and dont give way to anger, to remorse, to envy. Those emotions just sap strength enable you to move forward. And her other message was, be independent. I suppose she hoped that someday i would meet and marry prince charming. Nevertheless, she emphasized the importance of being able to fend for myself. And you did marry your prince charming, right . Marty ginsberg, your long time partner. But early in your marriage there was more adversity. He was stricken, very sick with cancer. You yourself have battled it twice. As a reader asked, how do you keep going under such challenging circumstances . Where do you draw your strength . Justice ginsburg i think the hardest time was when marty had testicular cancer. There was no chemotherapy, and there was massive surgery and daily radiation. But we got through each day and were thankful that we had it. We never thought anything other than that he would live as he did, and i was inspired when i had pancreatic cancer by marilyn who isgreat mentor. And when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that was her attitude, i will live. Shes still very much alive. Wow, that is amazing. If i could turn to your long and admirable championing of gender equality. Noe you have discussed those early cases in the public before, i wonder if you might share with our audience tonight just one of your favorite cases, the one thing you feel has had the most impact in this new field. Justice ginsburg before i answer that question, i brought along there was not too much to inspire young woman in my days, there was nancy drew and that was just about it. But i read something by a very young woman. She is barely 15 when she wrote it. If i can find it here, id like to read it to you. So as i said, these are the words of a young woman just turning 15. One of the many questions that has often bothered me is why women have been, and still are thought to be so inferior to men. Its easy to say its unfair, but thats not good enough for me. Id like to know the reason for this great injustice. Men presumably dominated women