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Justice Ginsburg Reflects On Role of Her Jewish Heritage

By Howard Friedman

Today's Washington Post reports on remarks by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week on the role her Jewish heritage plays in her life. Speaking at a D.C. synagogue during a pre-screening of the PBS series on Jewish Americans, Ginsburg said she is not religiously observant, though she was raised in an observant household. She says her estrangement from religious observance came when as a teenager she was not counted toward a prayer "minyan" after the death of her mother. Ginsburg says that she and Justice Breyer are "are justices who happen to be Jews", instead of "Jewish justices". None of the anti-Semitism that faced the first Jewish justice, Louis Brandeis, surfaced during her appointment, she said.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 15, 2008 (boomark / email).