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So uh, The Guardian's still-uncorrected obituary for Ruth Bader Ginsburg repeatedly claims that she "abandoned her religion," which you can only write if you know less than nothing about RBG, Judaism, and American Jewry. How is this still up?!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/19/ruth-bader-ginsburg-obituary
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/19/ruth-bader-ginsburg-obituary
The Guardian's RBG obituary also claims, without evidence because none exists, that her being Jewish "may have counted for more than a lifetime of commitment to women’s equality before the law" in her getting appointed to the Supreme Court. This is just crazy stuff.
I guess we now know what happens at The Guardian when all their Jewish writers and editors are out of the office for Rosh Hashana! Yikes. https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1308094034481745922
Instead of reading The Guardian's bizarre misreporting on Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Jewishness, I recommend instead reading this remarkable speech she delivered in 2018 in Israel about her Jewish identity and commitments:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2004: "My heritage as a Jew and my occupation as a judge fit together symmetrically." (Read the whole speech, too.) https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/speeches/viewspeech/sp_04-22-04
My latest: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Jewishness, in her own words. I collected RBG's writings on her Jewish commitments and identity, and their impact on her worldview, in one place. They span from 1946 to 2018, and are essential to understanding who she was. https://yair.substack.com/p/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-jewishness-in
"I am a judge, born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice, for peace, for enlightenment, runs through the entirety of the Jewish history and the Jewish tradition." https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1308130032599076866
Folks, this Twitter feed gets results! The Guardian has now corrected their Ruth Bader Ginsburg obituary that bizarrely claimed she "abandoned her religion." It's still wrong, as I'll explain, but not it's just wrong within normal parameters. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/19/ruth-bader-ginsburg-obituary
1. So how is this still wrong? The Guardian now claims that RBG "moved away from strict religious observance" over upset that women could not join a minyan to mourn her mother's death (they mean "say kaddish" but don't know what that is). But... https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1308402030449487873
2. But RBG was not raised Orthodox, she was raised Conservative, and held up Conservative Jewish feminist Henrietta Szold (who advocated women saying kaddish) as her hero on this exact subject! See the first speech here: https://yair.substack.com/p/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-jewishness-in https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1308403390851022848
3. In other words, RBG was quite comfortable with her own Jewish denomination, and was being critical of *another* denomination on this matter. The Guardian obit writer was unfamiliar with American Jewish denominations & didn't get this (thinking "Conservative" means "Orthodox"). https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1308403925117214725
4. American Jewish denominations are different from British ones. The closest thing they have to American "Conservative Judaism" (between Orthodox & Reform) is called "Masorti." So it's understandable why the name "Conservative Judaism" would confuse a non-Jewish British writer. https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1308405544533798913
