Honouring RBG: ‘A life profoundly linked to change’

Iconic Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was celebrated in a Sydney Jewish Writers Festival session this week.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s rise to the highest court of the United States came despite almost every possible barrier, said Suzie Miller, author of the play RBG, Of Many, One.

"Ruth had three strikes against her: being a woman, being a mother and being Jewish. Her family grew up poor," Miller told a Sydney Jewish Writers Festival audience this week.

Heather Mitchell, the acclaimed actor who played the iconic judge in the Sydney season, added that despite the challenges the law was a natural career for Ginsburg.

 “She understood injustice from an early age; before she knew what the word meant. The law was a great fit for her understanding of injustice.”

After their success with the play, which sold out in Sydney last year, Miller and Mitchell held another Sydney audience enthralled on Wednesday night as they discussed the life and achievements of the woman who has come to be known simply as RBG.

In an event for the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival, Miller and Mitchell were in conversation with journalist and broadcaster Michaela Kalowski before a packed auditorium at the Emanuel School in Sydney's east.

The discussion was held on what would have been Ginsburg’s 90th birthday and in honour of the anniversary, opera singer Elizabeth Cooper opened proceedings with a quartet of arias and songs that celebrated Ginsburg’s lifelong passion for opera. 

Miller and Mitchell took up where the music left off, speaking with relish and reverence about the intertwined personal and professional hallmarks of Ginsburg's life. To underscore the vibrancy of her tenacious character, Mitchell also broke into her onstage character at several moments during the evening, which drew rousing applause from the audience.