L ifestyle /C ulture
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Birthday Tribute Will Focus
on Judge’s Love of Opera
M USIC
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
RUTH BADER GINSBURG
always wanted to be a singer.

“If I had any talent in the
world, any talent that God
could give me, I would be a
great diva,” she told a group
of law students at Georgetown
University in 2015.

Her singing career didn’t
pan out, but the Supreme
Court justice and feminist icon
remained an avid opera fan
until her death in September.

On March 15, in honor
of what would have been
Ginsburg’s 88th birthday, the
National Museum of American
Jewish History,
Opera Philadelphia and the Lowell
Milken Center for Music of
American Jewish Experience at
The UCLA Herb Alpert School
of Music will host “For the Love
of Opera: Celebrating RBG’s
88th Birthday.” The event will
from artists who met her and
noticed the common themes in
her favorite performances.

“There are several articles
written about love for opera,
but especially operas whose
plotlines run parallel to what
she was fighting for in her life,”
he said.

The museum partnered with
Opera Philadelphia and the
Lowell Milken Center to select
music and organize the program.

Grant Loehnig,
head of music staff at Opera
Philadelphia, helped make
the selections and also provided
piano accompaniment for the
recorded performances. He
said the organizers knew one of
Ginsburg’s favorite operas was
Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro,” and
they included an aria featuring
Despina, the strong female
character in his “Cosî Fan Tutte.”
“We want it to be a celebra-
tion of her and her love of
opera, and we hope that comes
through with the joy of the
Each of the selections has something to do
with either a theme in law or in social justice.”
PETER KAZARAS
feature recorded performances
of Ginsburg’s favorite arias as
well as commentary from opera
professionals who knew her.

Ginsburg was a longtime
member of NMAJH. In 2019,
she became the 21st inductee
into the museum’s Only in
America Gallery/Hall of
Fame. Given her connection
to the museum and the Jewish
community, the staff knew they
wanted to organize an event
recognizing the first birthday
after her death.

Dan Samuels,
public programs manager at NMAJH,
began researching her passion
for opera. He encountered stories
26 MARCH 11, 2021
performances,” he said.

Peter Kazaras, director of
opera at UCLA, helped select the
music and will host the event.

“Each of the selections has
something to do with either a
theme in law or in social justice,
and whether that’s a contested
will from ‘Gianni Schicci,’ or
whether that’s buying someone
out of a contract in ‘The Elixir
of Love,’ or whether that be issue
of punitive immigration laws in
the aria from ‘The Consul,’ those
are the issues we’re dealing with
here,” he said.

Kazaras met Ginsburg
at the Kennedy Center in
Washington, D.C., where he has
Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at
her 2019 induction ceremony for
the Only in America Gallery/Hall of
Fame. Photo by Jessi Melcer
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opera
costume on display in “Notorious
RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth
Bader Ginsburg” at NMAJH
Photo by Jessi Melcer. “Notorious RBG:
The Life and Times of Ruth Bader
Ginsburg” is organized and circulated by
the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles.

directed four operas. He said
she would come to the parties
after the shows and speak with
delighted performers about how
much she enjoyed their work.

“For those of us who were
in the business and, you know,
got to meet her, I have to say
it was astonishing the details
she remembered,” he said. “She
remembered who had done what
where, not only who had sung,
but who had directed, who had
conducted — all of that stuff was
pretty much at her fingertips.”
The program features perfor-
mances by tenor Joshua Blue,
baritone Norman Garrett,
soprano Michelle Rice and
JEWISH EXPONENT
soprano Ashley Marie Robillard
with piano accompaniment
by Loehnig and Stephen Karr.

The songs were recorded in
NMAJH’s Dell Theater and
UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall.

Commentary about
Ginsburg’s relationship
with opera will be offered
by Francesca Zambello, the
Washington National Opera’s
stage director and artistic
director, and
Lawrence Brownlee, tenor and artistic
adviser to Opera Philadelphia.

Brownlee shared the stage with
Ginsburg in Donizetti’s “La Fille
du Régiment” at WNO in 2016.

She played the speaking role of
“The Duchess,” who gives lovers
permission to marry.

“For the Love of Opera” will
air via Facebook Live on the
Facebook pages of NMAJH,
Opera Philadelphia and the
Lowell Milken Center at 8
p.m. EST. The production will
also be available on-demand
after the event on Facebook,
NMAJH’s website and the
Opera Philadelphia Channel. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L ifestyle /C ulture
Comedian Talks About Life With Tourette Syndrome
ARTS SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
AS A TEENAGER, Pamela
Rae Schuller felt like having
Tourette syndrome (colloqui-
ally known as Tourette’s) made
her a waste of space.

As an adult and professional
stand-up comedian, she loves
her disability.

“Tourette’s can be hard, and
frustrating and even painful. It
can also add incredible things
to my life, if I am brave enough
to allow it,” she said.

She spoke about her journey
to self-love through humor
during her talk “What Makes Me
Tic: Comedy, Disability, and the
Inclusive Community.” Jewish
Family and Children’s Service
of Greater Philadelphia and
RespectAbility hosted the event
in honor of Jewish Disability
Acceptance, Awareness and
Inclusion Month and Jewish
Disability Advocacy Month.

“Every February, we see
our goal is to bring aware-
ness about disabilities and
the importance of advocacy
for disability rights,” said Lisa
Ney, director of programs and
services for persons living with
disabilities at JFCS. “And this
program is in honor of the
culmination of a month-long
programming that we’ve had
towards this goal.”
Schuller explained that
Tourette is a neurological
disorder that causes her to
experience tics, or movements
and noises she can’t control.

These can include moving
her fingers and toes, winking
uncontrollably, tensing her
stomach muscles and barking.

“I like to explain Tourette’s
as like a fence in your brain.

Well, in my fence, there is a
tiny piece missing. So signals
are seeping through that I
didn’t mean to send,” she said.

She said she had the worst
diagnosed case of Tourette in
the country as a teenager. She
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Karen Beth Staller, left, provides ASL interpretation as Pamela Rae Schuller discusses disability advocacy.

I like to explain Tourette’s as like a fence in your brain. Well, in my
fence, there is a tiny piece missing. So signals are seeping through that
I didn’t mean to send.”
PAMELA RAE SCHULLER
often lost control over her body
and injured herself, whether
through rupturing her own
appendix or throwing her head
back so hard she broke her
neck. The physical injuries were
not as painful as the emotional
toll of exclusion. Peers and
educators treated her as if she
was nothing but a disturbance,
and those who did include her
seemed to consider it a chari-
table act. She spent much of
her youth feeling like she was a
burden on her community.

Moments that made her feel
included and supported helped
change her perspective. There
was the time her peers walked
out with her when a religious
school teacher at her synagogue
told her she was being disrup-
tive and asked her to leave.

There was also the math
teacher who, instead of kicking
her out of class when she
started making noises, told her
she sounded like a metronome
and asked if she would like to
write a song about math.

She got excited about the
idea, as did the rest of the class,
and they ended up writing and
recording a whole CD together
with her tics included as
background accompaniment.

“And in that moment, this
idea of inclusion shifted,”
she said. “It stopped feeling
like what people couldn’t do
because I was there and started
feeling like what people got to
do because I was there.”
Taking improv comedy
classes in high school also led
to a breakthrough. The concept
of “Yes, and,” or the rule
that improvisational actors
cannot contradict each other’s
reality, helped her discover
her sense of humor and love
for performance without
having her Tourette constantly
scrutinized. “When I would join the
scene, flailing or barking or
making noises, they ‘Yes,
and-ed’ me,” she said. “I was
getting laughs, and not because
of Tourette’s, but because
people were starting to see
these other parts of me.”
Comedy has helped her
recognize the silliness of preju-
dice, like when an eyebrow
JEWISH EXPONENT
Screenshot by Sophie Panzer
which promotes mental health,
wellness and resilience through
creativity. She said it was important
for people to move past “toler-
ance,” a word that sounds like
nails on a chalkboard to her,
and embrace full inclusion.

“Nobody wants to just be
tolerated,” she said. “Every single
person has value, and every
single person has struggles and
challenges, and we should be
celebrating what each person
brings to our community.” l
waxer berated her for not
trying hard enough to control
her body right before audibly
farting. In addition to her career
as a comedian, Schuller has
a master’s degree in child
advocacy and policy and
launched an initiative for spanzer@jewishexponent.com;
Jewish teens called Here.Now, 215-832-0729
Name: WWDB AM 860
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Depth: 3.62 in
Color: Black
MARCH 11, 2021
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