RBG's Brave & Brilliant Women: List 1

She was particularly interested in Jewish role models because she was deeply Jewish and keenly felt the age-old connection between social justice and Jewish tradition.

Together Justice Ginsburg and I drew up a list of some 150 women with indomitable energy who moved the world forward.

What they all have in common is that they transcended what was expected, allowed, or tolerated for a woman of their time. They chose difficult or unusual paths and stayed true to their talents and missions despite the obstacles. They achieved what was unimaginable, and the unimaginable led to the advancement of women, to breaking barriers in previously men-only fields, and to changing the world for the better.

She was determined that this book would be part of her legacy to you.

That’s why we want to tell you the stories of brave and brilliant Jewish women, women who didn’t accept the tradition that a woman’s only place is in the home, women who wouldn’t settle for the rules prevailing in past generations and communities.

He was the beneficiary of a night school education of the kind started by Henrietta Szold.

Her congregation did not allow girls to become bat mitzvah, the equivalent of the bar mitzvah ceremony for boys, but she and the other girls in her class were confirmed in a group ceremony, also in 1946.

She wrote two pieces in the synagogue bulletin’s graduation issue that give us clues about what she was thinking about at the time. One was a tribute to a famous rabbi, Stephen S. Wise, whom she praised for his support of women’s suffrage.

In high school, Ruth continued to be a stellar and popular student, but life wasn’t easy for the Ginsburg family: Celia was diagnosed with cancer and underwent years of painful treatments.

As is the custom during this seven-day mourning period, at least ten Jews, called a minyan, said prayers together for her mother. Ruth knew the prayers and wanted to participate, but she was excluded, because in those days women did not count as part of the minyan—and still do not today in most Orthodox circles.

Ruth graduated from college, married a fellow student, and went out into the world. There she experienced gender discrimination of a more practical nature.
She experienced it at her first job out of college when her boss took away her responsibilities when she told him she was pregnant.

First she founded and led the pioneering Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

RBG argued that women were covered under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was added to the Constitution in 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, and required every state to provide equal protection under the law to all people.

Basing women’s rights on an old amendment originally meant to cover newly freed slaves wasn’t a perfect solution, but the effect was that it finally became illegal to treat women as separate or subordinate to men.

In 1980, she was appointed as a judge to the largely male U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and in 1993, she became the second woman to sit on the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land and the final word on cases where lower courts have disagreed.

She had to fight against the widespread assumption that women were not as capable as men.

This even happened on the Supreme Court, especially after the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, retired and RBG was the only woman on the Court: during private deliberations male justices dismissed arguments when she brought them up only to give the same points serious consideration when one of them did.

An esteemed lawyer himself, he was proud of his wife’s accomplishments and campaigned hard for her appointment to the Supreme Court.

She was a voracious reader and took great pleasure in music, particularly opera.

She enjoyed fashion, dressed with artistic flair, and admired art.

Resolute yet gracious, she always sent handwritten or hand-signed thank-you notes.

In 2013, a young law student dubbed her “the Notorious RBG” and the nickname stuck.

Her image was (and still is) emblazoned on T-shirts, coffee mugs, pins, socks, scarves, dresses, and many other products.

When asked how it felt to be a role model to a nation, she smiled mischievously and said: “On the one hand, it feels very good. On the other hand, I think I better watch myself, so that I don’t do anything that would tarnish my image!”

As an adult, RBG was hungry to learn more about heroic women in Judaism, to read biographies and letters, prayers and theology written by Jewish women throughout history.

Another is Deborah, one of the most important judges in ancient Jewish history. Her story is told in detail in the Book of Judges and in other Jewish sources, although some feminist scholars suspect that more information about her, and Miriam, as well, was later lost or removed. Deborah, of course, was a source of inspiration for RBG’s lifelong pursuit of justice.

She sets aside fears for her own safety and reveals herself to Pharaoh’s daughter, who has rescued Moses. She takes the initiative to speak up, and, thinking quickly, recommends Yocheved as a nurse for the baby, without mentioning that she is his sister and that Yocheved is his mother.

After the sea swallows Pharaoh and his horsemen, Miriam pulls out a timbrel, an instrument akin to a tambourine, and leads the Israelite women in dancing. In doing so, she inspires the women to have their own special moment in history. Some modern rabbis herald this as an independent act of leadership in which Miriam doesn’t simply echo Moses’s words.

Through her brave intervention with Pharaoh’s daughter, the midrash continues, Miriam made it possible for her full prophecy to come true.

Yocheved was the mother of Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt and is one of the most pivotal figures in all of Jewish history.

The biblical story says she raised the baby until he had “grown,” though in those days that could have meant after he was old enough to be weaned—about two years old—or much longer.

What the story also doesn’t say, but what can be guessed, is that at some point Yocheved must have told him of his true identity, allowing him to sympathize with the plight of the suffering Israelite slaves.

When as an adult Moses summoned the courage and determination to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to freedom, he was following his mother’s example of fighting for the life and survival of the Jewish people.

Her compassion and wisdom are respected and praised in Jewish texts.

Unlike her children Miriam, Aaron, and Moses—all of them considered prophets—she entered the land of Canaan. According to Jewish legend, she is buried in the Tomb of the Matriarchs, in Tiberias, Israel.

Many people add an orange to the seder plate as a symbol to remember the heroic women of Jewish history and all marginalized people who, like Yocheved, have been left out of the traditional retelling of the Passover story.

Batya knew it was a Hebrew baby, and according to the Book of Exodus, she made a decision that changed history: She defied her father’s decree and rescued him.

Batya is one of a small group of biblical women who have become known as the “devout converts.” The Bible tells how Batya, not wanting to be associated with her father’s cruel ways, stopped worshipping Egyptian idols.

Deborah lived in a troubled time. Oppressed by their neighbors, the Canaanites lived in wretched conditions and in a constant state of fear.

Passionate about freedom for the Israelites, Deborah planned a revolt and ordered an influential Israelite, Barak, to lead ten thousand soldiers up Mount Tabor to fight the Canaanite king’s much larger army.