Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Influenced By Her Jewish Roots, Passes At 87

United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, age 87, passed away of pancreatic cancer on the first evening of Rosh Hashana, leaving a legacy as a trailblazing feminist and a compassionate jurist. Ginsburg was the senior of the three Jewish justices on the nine-member Supreme Court, alongside Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

Born in Brooklyn in 1933, her father Nathan arrived in the United States from Russia at the age of 13 and became a furrier. Her mother Celia was born in New York just months after the family arrived from Austria. Celia was focused on education, having graduated high school at age 15. She aspired for her daughter to become a high school teacher, but tragically died of cancer two days before Ruth graduated.  

The 5-foot-1 future USSC justice went on to Cornell University and married Martin Ginsburg. She later enrolled at Harvard Law School before transferring to Columbia to complete her law degree. She learned personally of the inequities in American society when she was demoted by a government office in 1954 after she became pregnant. About five years later, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter did not even consider Ginsburg’s application to become a clerk because of her gender. Then in 1963, Rutgers Law School hired her as a professor but pointedly paid her less than her male counterparts, citing her marriage to a high earning man as cause.