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image - A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project

A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project. Made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

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Tag: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Life goes on amid crises

Life goes on amid crises

Left to right: Bahrain Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullatif al-Zayani, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, United States President Donald Trump and United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed sign the Abraham Accords on Sept. 15 at the White House in Washington, D.C. (photo by Avi Ohayon/IGPO via Ashernet)

The news on erev Rosh Hashanah that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away at age 87 cast a pall over many celebrations. Some in our community shared a teaching that says that a person who dies on Rosh Hashanah is a tzaddik, a righteous person. As tributes poured in for the late jurist, it was clear that many viewed Ginsburg as a tzaddeket, irrespective of the timing of her passing. Grief over her death was joined by the inevitable political implications of a Supreme Court vacancy mere weeks before U.S. general elections.

While Ginsburg’s death, at an advanced age and after years battling successive experiences with cancer, may not have been a complete shock, it was, for many, a tragic conclusion to the Jewish year 5780. The pandemic will be the imprinted memory of this time, but a succession of other events – uncontained climate change-driven wildfires and other natural disasters, political unrest, racial violence and police brutality, plus a litany of other crises and inconveniences – will be included when the history of this year is written.

Bad times can also bring out the best in people, though, and there is an uplifting inventory of good deeds. Locally, the way the Jewish community has rallied around those in need of food, social services and support has been heartening. This local unity and kindness have been mirrored in communities worldwide.

Among the few brighter spots on the international scene has been an opening of relations between Israel and parts of the Arab world. Suddenly, or so it appeared to most casual observers, the United Arab Emirates announced it would initiate diplomatic relations with Israel. The Kingdom of Bahrain followed suit. Other countries are alleged to be considering similar paths. When the Arab League was called upon to condemn this historic shift in relations, the body opted against. With the exception of Palestinians, the commentary from most Arab countries has been positive.

This has perhaps less to do with any newfound admiration for Israel than it does self-interest in the form of economic potential in bilateral relations with the region’s economic superpower. Geopolitical self-interest is also a factor. Nothing makes friends like shared enemies and Iran, with its nuclear initiative and ambitions for regional hegemony, makes whatever complaints the Arab world had against Israel pale in comparison. To say nothing of what’s in it for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s political ambitions or the electioneering of the U.S. president just prior to elections in that country.

Self-interest is most likely at play in another sudden development. If there wasn’t enough happening in the world, on Monday, B.C. Premier John Horgan called a snap election, a year ahead of schedule. The wisdom of holding an election during a state of emergency has been challenged by opposition leaders and others, but the governing party did significant polling on the subject and must have concluded that whatever reticence there may be on that front was canceled out by the New Democrats’ strong position in opinion polls. By the time voting ends, on Oct. 24, most British Columbians will hopefully be more focused on the issues than on the timing.

The timing, though, is another wrinkle. The law that set fixed election dates – and which Horgan, therefore, flouted by calling the vote early – also fixes the date for the third Saturday in October. While British Columbians vote in municipal elections on Saturdays, provincial (as well as federal) elections have always been on weekdays. Observant Jews will have to make accommodations and vote early. Autumn being what it is, it is theoretically possible to race to the polls after sundown and before the 8 p.m. cutoff. Less frantically, there are seven days of advance voting, an increase from six days in the 2017 election. All voters can request mail-in ballots – early reports from avid voters suggest the process is simple and takes only a couple of minutes. It is possible to pick up (call first!) and return your vote-by-mail package at an electoral district office. For people with disabilities, there is an opportunity for voting by phone.

The pandemic has created all range of challenges in our lives. Voting in the midst of it comes with its own difficulties, but, however one feels about the decision to call an early vote, the wheels are in motion. Turnout was up in 2017 to 61.2%, an improvement from the mid-50% turnout in the previous two elections. We face important decisions about the path to an economic recovery and the management of the ongoing pandemic. We must each of us make a plan to vote, and encourage friends and family to do the same. Find out more at elections.bc.ca.

Format ImagePosted on September 25, 2020September 23, 2020Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags Arab League, Bahrain, coronavirus, COVID-19, democracy, economics, elections, Israel, John Horgan, peace, politics, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, United Arab Emirates, United States
How RGB got her start in law

How RGB got her start in law

Marty Ginsburg (Armie Hammer) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) arrive at court in On the Basis of Sex. (photo from Focus Features)

A news flash for members of the tribe who’ve been kvelling over a Jewish woman on the U.S. Supreme Court for fully a quarter of a century: Ruth Bader Ginsburg long ago matriculated beyond a symbol of ethnic achievement.

Last year’s hit documentary, RBG, noted that Justice Ginsburg is an enormously popular role model for women in their teens and 20s, and she has achieved pop culture celebrity to boot. The latest film – released recently in Canada and, as of press time, still playing in Metro Vancouver – is On the Basis of Sex, which applies the Hollywood treatment to Ginsburg’s beginnings as a smart but struggling lawyer and situates her smack in the mainstream. To coin a Lincolnesque testimonial, now she belongs to the masses.

Director Mimi Leder and screenwriter Daniel Stiepleman (who happens to be Ruth and Marty Ginsburg’s nephew) frame On the Basis of Sex as an underdog saga. And, like a lot of underdogs in Hollywood movies, our heroine has a superpower that she only discovers – and masters – on her journey.

The movie is effective, and ultimately inspiring, in a way that doesn’t remotely challenge viewers other than to ask them to follow clever legal strategies.

The film opens with Ginsburg’s first days at Harvard Law School, where her husband Marty is in his second year. Immediately and repeatedly, she (and the viewer) is reminded of her second-class status as a woman in a man’s world.

It takes awhile to reconcile the confident Justice Ginsburg of public record with the somewhat skittish character that British actress Felicity Jones creates. On the one hand, as a wife and a mother who – like every other aspiring woman professional of the time – never wears pants, Ginsburg is plainly a grownup. But she’s patronized by everyone from the law school’s WASPy dean (a villainous Sam Waterston) to her husband (a stalwart Armie Hammer), and she risks being seen as a rabble-rouser (it’s the late 1950s) simply by standing up for herself.

Although the film does not conceal or finesse the Ginsburgs’ Jewishness, it presents casual misogyny and the entrenched old boys’ network, not antisemitism, as the obstacles Ruth needs to navigate. Consequently, she has to devise ways – both direct and elliptical – to raise the consciousness of every ally, including her devoted husband, before she can even challenge potential adversaries. While Marty certainly recognizes his wife’s brilliance, he’s a product of his upbringing and the times.

On the Basis of Sex or, as it’s referred to at your favourite corned beef dispensary, “RBG: The Early Years,” devotes considerable screen time to the couple’s relationship and, for many viewers, that will serve as the emotional heart of the film. Others will derive more pleasure from Ginsburg finding her footing and her voice as a scholarly attorney.

As Stiepleman noted in an interview during a recent visit to San Francisco, “Coming out of law school, [Ginsburg] had three strikes against her: she was a woman, she was a mother and she was a Jew. Any one of those things alone, law firms had taken the risk. It was the three together that made her unhire-able in their eyes.”

Unable to find a job practising law, she takes a teaching position. Through a combination of determination, persistence and luck, she comes across a unique case that addresses the inequities of gender discrimination. The complainant, who looked after his mother but was denied the tax deduction for caregivers, is a man.

Earlier in the film, there’s a crucial chain of events when her husband is diagnosed with cancer. Ginsburg not only took care of him (and their small daughter), but got them both through law school. That experience as a caregiver gives her both the empathy and the understanding to identify with and persuade her would-be client, as well as to research and argue the case.

The lengthy courtroom scene that comprises the film’s last 20 minutes or so is genuinely effective and even emotional, despite the formulaic staging and the fact that we know Ginsburg will prevail. At the pivotal moment, we witness a character coming into her own, grasping her abilities and realizing her destiny. And with that, the underdog becomes a superhero.

On the Basis of Sex is rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive content.

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.

Format ImagePosted on January 11, 2019January 9, 2019Author Michael FoxCategories TV & FilmTags history, law, RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, women
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