Courts

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is Target Of Anti-Semitic Graffiti

A swastika was scrawled over her face, and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

By Staci Zaretsky on March 15, 2019 9:59 am

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the self-proclaimed “flaming feminist litigator” who leads the Supreme Court’s wing, was the target of disturbing anti-Semitic graffiti in her hometown of New York earlier this week. Ginsburg is the first Jewish woman to serve on the high court.

A Brooklyn subway poster bearing an image of the justice to advertise The Unstoppable Ruth Bader Ginsburg: American Icon (affiliate link), a photo history of the life and work of the second woman to sit on the Supreme Court, was vandalized with an anti-Semitic threat (“Die, Jew Bitch!”) and a swastika scrawled over her face.

The New York Times has additional information on this repugnant incident:

The New York Police Department’s hate crimes unit and officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority were investigating the incident, which came to wider attention after it was reported by a commuter on Twitter, officials said. …

The graffiti was removed from the poster on Tuesday afternoon, the transit authority said.

“We have zero tolerance for hate and violence, and this is a horrendous example that has no place anywhere,” an agency spokesman, Shams Tarek, said in a statement.

Officials said they would share any available surveillance video with the police to assist them with their investigation.

This is not the first time Justice Ginsburg has experienced anti-Semitism, and it probably won’t be the last. As a society, we should be better than this, but we’re not. As a Jewish woman, it pains me to write sentences like that, but I know I’ll be forced to continue doing so as long as I’m alive. Anti-Semitism is real and the “fine people” who hold these beliefs have been emboldened and encouraged by hateful political diatribe. This is America, and this is shameful. Try harder. Change. Please.

It’s likely that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — a woman who has experienced discrimination firsthand and fought against it her entire career — will gracefully handle this situation, expressing her dissent not with anger, but with disappointment.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is Target of Anti-Semitic Graffiti in New York [New York Times]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.