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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is coming to Philadelphia next week

The Associate Justice of the Supreme Court will appear at the American Jewish History Museum in conversation with Nina Totenberg.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg waves to the audience at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington in August.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg waves to the audience at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington in August.Read moreCliff Owen / AP
    by Stephan Salisbury
    Updated 
    Published 

There is the book, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

There is the documentary, RBG, and the exercise book, RBG Workout. There is “The Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Song,” an evening event mounted by the National Museum of American Jewish History on Dec. 12. There is the opera, Scalia/Ginsburg. There is the Jewish museum’s current exhibition, "Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

What more could there be?

That’s easy: The Notorious RBG herself.

The pop heroine — surely the first associate justice of the Supreme Court who’s been in the running for that title — will be honored by the Jewish museum on Thursday, Dec. 19, when she is inducted into the museum’s Only in America Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Irving Berlin, Estee Lauder, Gertrude Elion, and Leonard Bernstein.

Known for her legal opinions and forceful dissents — especially on behalf of women’s rights — Ginsburg is the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She will appear at the museum in conversation with longtime friend Nina Totenberg, NPR legal affairs correspondent.

"We are thrilled and honored to induct Justice Ginsburg into Only in America, where she joins other extraordinary Jewish Americans who have made significant contributions to broader society, even beyond America, and we are humbled that she will join us at the museum in person to accept this distinction,” said Misha Galperin, the museum’s interim chief executive.

“While we have long featured Justice Ginsburg’s remarkable achievements through our core exhibition and even more so this year with Notorious RBG, we are proud to continue telling her exceptional story of persistence in this enduring way,” Galperin said.

Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG authors and exhibition curators, and attorney Kenneth Feinberg, a Ginsburg friend, will also speak at the event, already sold out.

Alexandria Shiner, a Washington National Opera Young Artist, will perform “Abscheulicher! … Komm Hoffnung” — Leonore’s aria from Beethoven’s Fidelio — and “God Bless America.”

Ginsburg is well-known as a lover of opera.