Tonight. [applause] we primarily measure increasing growth not by how many people walk through the doors, but by the capacity and openness of our hearts. Our hearts have four chambers. For core practices, we are loving kindness in which we take care of each other at any and every stage of life. Your justice in which we redefine the very we of who is in this world. 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 live and work fiercely as if our prayers did not matter. We are moved, we are sacred texts. You dont have to be a member to join us, just calm. Come during the week, come on a sunday are join us for meditation for study, come have a conversation in a cup coffee. You came here tonight for Justice Ginsburg is a hero. An absolute hero. [applause] we cannot think of someone to be with us at this particular time, its a dark moment in our country. She represents everything we want to be fighting for. For those that are marginalize, for a womans voice in the public sphere and the Justice System for equity and equality, for everything we hold dear. For the second time we welcome her to and we relinquish this out of total love and deep respect for who she is what she brings into the world. One introduce kathleen who sits on the board who herself is a remarkable human being an incredible lawyer who has spent fighting for equity and womens rights for over 30 years. Welcome. Thank you. I want to support about the forward and what 120 years of progressive Workplace Fairness advocating journalism the forward has been for the last 120 years and counting. It is the mainstay of the progressive jewish community. Were here to celebrate that. Give a shout out to rachel. Please stand up. I chose the publisher of the forward, jane is the editor. This is a woman led organization. If youve ever heard argument the United StatesSupreme Court you know that too is a woman led organization. I like to ask ruth and jane to come out before i say a few words about them. [applause] [applause] [applause] thank you so much. Please be seated. I could say a lot about ruth bader ginsburg. I had a lot of alternative plans. Yesterday, there is a prayer for ruth publish. Did you happen to read it . It was written by abby, its very short. At a time as disquieting as this, when many feel deflated, shaken, worried for the future, when we almost cant remember what its like to go a day without namecalling and lives, harshness or callousness, when were nostalgic for the years of complete sentences, dignified state then ship and ask of empathy we still look to you ruth bader ginsburg, the girl turned legendary. Fighter for the powerless and runs. May go from strength to strength because you have been hours. May the many more years because you make the word brighter, fair, kinder. Because we need you. You helped us remain cleared 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 wall read justice, justice, shall their pursuit. You have and will keep trying, god bless ruth bader ginsburg. [applause] welcome jane eisner, the intrepid editor of the forward, my friend, my icon and im happy to welcome you both. [applause] thank you to everyone coming here to those watching this on facebook, we welcome me. Its a thrilling pleasure for me. On behalf of my collects to participate in this important event. We have asked readers to send us their questions for Justice Ginsburg. The responses been overwhelming. We heard from readers across the country and from overseas as well. Tonight i will quote from some of these in our conversation because theyre brilliant and funny and a powerful reflection of how interested americans are in the United StatesSupreme Court especially in this Supreme Court justice. Justice ginsburg has asked we not discuss issues that are before the court or may be before the court. We are respecting the. Happily there are many other topics to talk about. Many readers are interested in your jewish life and identity. And how it shaped your judicial career and outlook. As we sit in the sanctuary it seems like a good place to. You grew up in brooklyn. [applause] family not about but very identified. You just jen described your mother lighting candles on friday nights. I heard how you enjoyed celebrating passover with your family youre right that the four questions were the best part. Im wondering why . A child is asking about this evening in celebration why is passover night different from all other nights, its the child asking the question and the rest is devoted to answering it. Think its just one of many illustrations of how jews how they are learning want children to be welleducated. A couple of years ago with the rabbi you wrote about the heroic visionary women in the passover story. Did you notice all of that when youre a girl . Or is that something that emerged later in life for you, the recognition of the role of women . Was the prime mover. Growing up i may have known about miriam but i did not know about the midwives were pharaohs daughter, but there were no women in it. Thats true. Save work to make a difference in that regard. I understand that was something you are aware of as a girl, your limitations. The boys were having bar mitzvahs and girls cannot and your mother had a strict orthodox upbringing. How did that experience of being a girl at a time when girls and women had little or no role in religious life, how did that affect you . Did it inspire you or something you wanted to change . I wanted to have a big party get all those presents. I grew up with a cousin we lived in the same household. We were like twins. He had this great party. I was very jealous. Later on i read that you trace the jewish presence on the Supreme Court beginning not with Justice Louis brandeis, but actually with benjamin who is the first jew to be offered a seat on the United StatesSupreme Court but declined. In fact, he became leader of the confederacy. Why do start there and thinking about the jewish presence on the court . I dont think of him as presence on the court. Some are very good and some are not so good. Benjamin was very interesting character. He did have an Orthodox Jewish upbringing but he married out of the faith. His story is intriguing. He rose to the top of his ranks in the confederacy. The reason he turned on the Supreme Court appointment was that he had just been chosen by the Louisiana Legislature to be the senator. That was before the 17th amendment. Antisemitism by others gave a few to him. Its the way he was treated among the others. They do have some ddelta benjamin and many a museum. Have you seen it . Key wondered how it has affected your lifes work as a boy here, feminist and Supreme Court justice became to know morwe came to knowmore and mores happening to the. Since of being a member of the minority grouaminority group itd somehow survived but the idea my father came from russia when he was 13. My mother was the first person born in the usa born four months after and both of them are then anything else. You mentioned growing up in the shadow of world war ii and the holocaust and im wondering if that shaped your views of human rights and the human rights law. It its certainly a large part of it. You probably know that it was the beginning of the end of apartheid in america. We were fighting a war against the racism enough water to a speech [inaudible] one of the major voices to the brown v. Board of education. What they faced coming back to the states after they fought and then came back to the. How has it accommodated through its tradition and has that changed while youve been there . The Supreme Court. Every year they would get half a dozen or more complaints from the Orthodox Jews and say we are so proud of our membership in this theme court. Its in the year of our lord. The cycle was to complete and they would have just been a year then there were complaints. We liked what it said about the independence of the United States. Just the year 2018 with the independence of the United States speak [inaudible] after today for the sitting day and the first response. Its not very convincing for the chief. They had worked so hard on this case do you want to take away from the opportunity to present their case and require them to have a substitute. [applause] its had a really interesting question. Hyou once described an opinion y the israeli justice that forbids torture even in what they call the ticking time bomb situation. It had a tremendous persuasive value so im wondering as an American Jewish insurer breast, do you feel any special affinity with the look of the israeli Supreme Court . I do feel a special affinity for the work of one of the most brilliant jurists in our time. As you know they dont have a constitution that they have a wealth of law to draw, they have the ottoman empire, the heritage from the United Kingdom and jewish law. They need to know where the hell is going off to extract that information and a very eloquent judgment. To be so overwhelmed i often turn to the more and more we come to resemble our enemies in our disrespect. [applause] your beloved mother was struck in with cancer during your first year in high school. Wanted you to tell us a little bit about that. She said i should be a lady and i h bet she didnt mean fancy dresses that your emotions and. In her other message was to be independent. I suppose she hoped that one day i would meet and marry prince charming and emphasized the importance of being able to defend for myself. An and you did marry your prince charming, your longtime partner but early on in your marriage he was very sick with cancer and you yourself have battled it twice. How do you keep going under such challenging circumstances and where do you draw your strength . When marty had testicular cancer was no chemotherapy and e was massive surgery. When she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, that was her attitude, i will live and she was still very much alive. I would like to turn that to your long and admiral championing of gender equality. I know that you have discussed those early cases in the publicc before, but i wonder if you might share with our audience tonight one of your favorite cases that you think had the best impachave thebest impact ew field. Before i answer that question, there wasnt too much to inspire young women in my days. There was a young woman barely 15 when she wrote it. As i said, these are the words of a young woman just turning 15. One of the questions that bothered me is why women have been and still are so inferior to men. Its easier to say it is unfair. I would like to know the reason for this great injustice. Because of the greater physical strength its been to earn a living and do as they please until recently they silently went along wit with us with is stupid. [laughter] the longer it is kept up the more it becomes. Fortunately, education, work and progress have opened up womens eyes. In many countries they have been granted equal rights, many people mainly women now realize how long it was to tolerate this state of affairs for so long. It was one of the last entries made in the diary. I think the audience does born in the netherlands in 1929 and died in 1945 while in prison just three months short of her 16th birthday. Isnt that amazing that it really is. We overlook that access of her writing in her diary. Its like asking me which of my four children and two stepgrandchildren to illustrate that genderbased discriminati discrimination. She had a healthy pregnancy and tossed into the ninth month. At the hospital the doctor came out and told steven you have a healthy baby boy but your wife died of an embolism and decided at that moment he would personally care for this and didnt and wouldnt work full fulltime until he was in school fulltime. He heard about something called child care benefits. Once they went above that amount, the benefits was reduced dollar for dollar. But he thought he was told by his Social Security office these are mothers benefits and are not available to authors. He wrote a letter to the editor at the new jersey newspaper and said i hear a lot these days about this, let me tell you my story and besides what happened it is a Social Security office. Does Gloria Steinem know about this . [laughter] i was teaching at rutgers at the time and they called in the context the affiliate of the community and that is how his case began. The court issued a unanimous suggestion in the russia now, so most of it went by justice brennan. They paid the same Social Security taxes that they didnt use the same benefits and then a few of them thought this is discrimination. The law tells them you have no choice, you have to be a fulltime girder and hire a substitute. It is when it is male so everybody was hurt by this genderbased discrimination. Such a lovely metaphor. [inaudible] we will get one for Justice Ginsburg. I feel like there is a lovely metaphor and the answers that show gender a quality is for women and children did you see it that way . Around at that time you delivered support for the equal rights amendment which act at tt time passed both houses of congress but never ratified by enough states to become part of the constitution. Now im just wondering do we need an era now especially in this meet to movement . The constitution is powerfully hard to amend. After congress it takes three quarters of the state to ratify and if so three states short of a talented get you to the point that you would be if there were an equal rights amendment and then i take out o my pocket constitution and say i have three granddaughters. They point to the First Amendment guarantee for the speech. I would like them to see in the constitution that statement of equal citizenship stature and i would like to see that as a basic tenet of the system. Every constitution and the world returned since the year 1950 has an equal the length of the equal rights amendment statement that equal dignity and rights. In order to form a more Perfect Union, and i think part of becoming, a very large part of becoming a more Perfect Union is to embrace more and more people. I would not have been there. Half the population wouldnt have been there. Native americans were not a part of the constituency. I think the genius of the constitution is the concept that has become ever more invasive so i would like to see the equal rights amendment in the constitution. [applause] and we are still hopeful that there is some movement to provide the amendment. You have spoken recently about your own need to movement that happened two years ago and one of the readers wondered whether you still experience this today. Not that kind of sexism. Im going to be a besides. [laughter] i think most of the ex would be the legislature changing. It was a combination between the courts and the legislature. My best example of that is when i was growing up i never saw a woman in the symphony orchestra. The wellknown music critic for the times were then he could tell whether it was a woman playing or a man one day they decided to put into the test so they sat him down and blindfolded them and had a progression of Young Artists cut out before the sudden they came out with the best idea lets draw the curtain so that the judges of the competition would not see the people who were auditioning. And with that, almost overnight it was changed in the composition of the symphony orchestras. A young violinist said you left out something. You left out the [inaudible] unfortunately we cant replicate this. There is a wonderful volume which he explains the first one and the second was in power but he starts with a story of coming down to where they are and you are not supposed to speak in public, women to speak in publ public. When i would Say Something and it was silent and then the discussion went on and maybe ten or 15 minutes later a man would say just what i have said. There was a tendency to tune out when a woman was speaking because you couldnt expect her to say anything worthwhile. This condition might be continuing. For the Supreme Court justices that would be you and you were interrupted three times more often than your male colleagues. This is an academic study. Does that ring true to you and does it mean anything . I am glad that report came out because i think things will change and we will be more conscious. It was a competition to see who could ask the most questions. [laughter] one day in the argument session Justice Oconnor was asking a question and then i jumped in and she said wait a minute, im not finished. The next day in a rude interruption manner at lunch and immediately after they said dont worry about it at all, they do it to each other all the time so that was my reaction to the reporter watch the story said shes right. And the women came to my rescue from georgetown, a great expert and tried to explain how was it that i came to israel. A fast talking jewish girl most people didnt know the two of us know this illustration they do the fast talking. So many of their readers, men and especially when men are really hungry for your advice. Here is becky from Raleigh North Carolina working as a paralegal for only a few months and has already faced discrimination. She wants to pursue her dream of a legal career. First being alone is hard to [inaudible] [laughter] it was to be kind of a Kindergarten Teacher to explain to the judges that there was such a thing as genderbased discrimination. It was a big difference between their understanding of Racial