I couldn’t have been older than 10 when I first discovered Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. One of my teachers was talking about Rube Goldberg machines in class. I had no idea what a Rube Goldberg machine was and like all children my age, made a note to Google it later. I scribbled down Ruth Goldberg and went about my day.
That night, I ran down to the basement, logged onto our family computer, and typed in Ruth Goldberg. To my surprise, nothing of use came up. I figured I may have misheard or misspelled and tried to change up my searches. This is how I came across the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At 10 years old, RBG was my best-kept secret.
With my own plans to change the world, I was inspired by RBG’s accomplishments. She wasn’t just a woman who fought for gender parity, but she was a Jewish woman—and she never let that intersection bring her down. She fought alongside non-Jewish women to succeed in a man’s world and left a legacy behind her. I was in awe and sought out to be just like her.
I was shocked there was a Jewish woman this successful and more people weren’t talking about her. I thought, maybe people don’t know who she is and that’s why no one spoke about who I would later learn was one of the most influential women in recent American history. I tried to speak about her with my friends but none of them knew who she was. I assumed there was a reason no one knew RBG and vowed to myself that I would protect her secret.
RBG pioneered the way for women’s rights in this country; it was only a matter of time before others found out who she was. My friends and I grew up in the age of activism, RBG soon grew to become more than just my hero. I was originally disappointed to be sharing my long-kept secret with the world but was excited she was finally getting the recognition she deserved.
RBG was a feminist icon, but her Judaism- the thing that made her special to me- was often left out of the discussion. The way she carried Jewish values through her work spoke to me. The intersection of her Judaism and her womanhood is what drove her career. Being Jewish and a woman made her job infinitely harder. She knew that and was famously quoted about it “I had three strikes against me. First, I was Jewish, and the Wall Street firms were just beginning to accept Jews. Then I was a woman. But the killer was my daughter Jane, who was 4 by then.”
I just didn’t understand why other people didn’t know more about her. Even now, in memorial, people are blatantly unaware of her Judaism. She was the exception and inspired young, Jewish women like me to keep pushing boundaries. RBG taught me about the importance of representation. I would have never been able to dream as big as I have if it weren’t for a Jewish woman sitting on the Supreme Court.
No politician in American history has been unanimously adored, RBG was no exception. Her passing invited space for criticism of her career, something I again wondered why I had never heard before. The international adoration for RBG drowned out the negativity while she was alive. It hurts a lot to see people tweeting that RBG doesn’t deserve recognition for the incredible feminist work she has done because of other unfavorable decisions she’s made in her position. The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution; the goal is a group of unbiased judges making apolitical decisions. I don’t agree with every decision and dissent she made, but it’s mind-blowing to me that some want to throw away the decades of hard work RBG put into creating gender equality in this country.
Hearing of RBG’s passing just about destroyed me. I cried to my mother for over an hour. Many people are saying there is no truth without Ruth. People are afraid of what happens next. These feelings are valid but for a moment let us just appreciate and mourn this mountain of a woman.
May we be like Ruth.
May her memory be a blessing.
May her memory be a revolution.
May we become a credit to her name.
