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Fashioning feminism: A photography exhibit explores the meaning of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s collars
(New York Jewish Week) – The first Jewish woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was known for her trailblazing advocacy of gender equality, her impassioned dissenting opinions and for being a liberal icon.
But the Brooklyn native, who served on the court for 27 years until her death at age 87, was also known for her fashion — particularly, the collars she wore on top of her black robes. Many of her collars were trimmed with lace, others intricately woven with beads and jewels; some were fashioned out of neckties and seashells, while others were crochet. Each helped Ginsburg embrace a subtle, feminine statement about causes she cared about.
Now, three years after Ginsburg’s death on Erev Rosh Hashanah in 2020, photographs of 24 of the collars Ginsburg wore throughout her career are on display in a new exhibit, “RBG Collars: Photographs by Elinor Carucci,” that opened Friday at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. The collars, photographed by Elinor Carucci, an Israeli photographer who has been living and working in New York since 1995, are a way of celebrating the trailblazing life and career of the Jewish justice, Carucci told the New York Jewish Week.
“I’ve never done something like this,“ said Carucci, who typically photographs people — and not objects — for publications like The New Yorker, the New York Times and New York Magazine. “The whole thing was intense, but really wonderful. It was such an honor, especially for someone that I admire so greatly. It feels like I got to document a little prism into her life.”
Ginsburg’s history with the decorative collars dates to 1993, when she was first appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton. Alongside her colleague, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, they began wearing a version of a jabot — a lace ruffle fastened around the neck — showcasing subtle femininity to set themselves apart. Judge’s robes, after all, were designed for men, and allowed for a shirt collar and tie to peek through at the neck. As the story goes, the collars also kept them from looking washed out by their robes.
Over the years, however, Ginsburg explored options beyond the lace ruffle, and she utilized the subtlety of her collars to make statements about causes and people she cared about. One collar is made out of Hawaiian shells, gifted to Ginsburg by a third-year law student at the University of Hawai’i when Ginsburg was a justice-in-residence in 2017. Another is made out of four layers of jacquard fabric — one for each member of Ginsburg’s family, which included her late husband, Martin Ginsburg, who died in 2010, and their children Jane and James — with the words “It’s not sacrifice, it’s family,” stitched into the neckline. The phrase was one Marty Ginsburg told the New York Times when asked why he gave up his law career to move to Washington to support his wife.
A collar made out of shells and another made out of jacquard. The first was gifted to Ginsburg by a law student at the University of Hawai’i in 2017 and the second by her clerks in 2018. (Elinor Carucci)
Ginsburg often wore a black and gold jeweled collar, shining and armorlike, when she announced dissenting opinions. Similarly, she wore a yellow beaded and rose scalloped collar when she announced majority opinions.
As New York Times’ chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman wrote in 2020 upon Ginsburg’s death, her collars “served as both semiology and semaphore: They signaled her positions before she even opened her mouth, and they represented her unique role as the second woman on the country’s highest court.”
“The idea was to claim what was a traditionally male uniform and unapologetically feminize it,” Friedman wrote. “That may seem innocuous, but it was in fact radical.”
Photographs of two of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s most iconic collars, “Majority” and “Dissent,” which she wore when announcing each respective opinion. (Elinor Carucci)
The idea to photograph the collars began as an assignment for Time Magazine, Carucci said.
In 2020, just one month after Ginsburg died, Carucci was sent to the Supreme Court, where the collars were being rolled out of Ginsburg’s chambers — which, as it happens, were no longer empty, as it was also Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s first day on the job. Today, some of the collars and other RGB memorabilia belong to a permanent exhibition in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Carrucci said she only had only six minutes to photograph each collar. “When I saw them, I started crying,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “I was already so emotional about her passing and what it meant. My husband was like, ‘Stop crying, we only have three minutes left.’”
The original article was so well received, it inspired to Carucci to put together a book of her photographs, alongside a brief history or anecdote of each collar. She enlisted writer and researcher Sara Bader (no relation) to work with her; the 222-page book, “The Collars of RBG: A Portrait of Justice” was released last month.
Carucci said one of the most surprising aspects of the project was how relatable and universal the collars are, despite belonging to one of the most recognizable women in the country. “Firstly, I appreciate that it’s not about the body,” she said. “Many times, as women, we feel that we can send messages by how we present ourselves. A lot of the time, it’s related to our bodies and our body types and it gets complicated. With these, they’re not related to the body.”
“Also, what I like is that almost every woman could wear these,” she added. “They are very ‘of the people.’ They’re accessible. The lace looks like something my grandma used to wear. They are the collection of a woman — something we could all have.”
At the Jewish Museum, the photographs of the collars are displayed alongside Judaica, amulets, necklaces and pendants in the museum’s collection. Although the collars themselves aren’t particularly Jewish, by interspersing the photographs with jewelry over the centuries, curator Shira Backer aims to showcase how Ginsburg’s accessories are part of a long tradition of Jewish tradition and adornment.
Ginsburg, according to a press release about the exhibit, “understood how adornment — particularly jewelry, given its close association with the body and its ability to express individuality in settings where possibilities for self-expression are limited — can communicate beauty and power, joy and defiance, optimism and resolve.”
“RBG Collars: Photographs by Elinor Carucci” will be on view at the Jewish Museum through May 2024. The photographs are also on display at the Edwynn Houk Gallery, which has represented Carucci’s work for the last two decades, through Feb. 10.
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The post Fashioning feminism: A photography exhibit explores the meaning of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s collars appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran’s Top Diplomat Meets With Russian Officials, Supreme Leader Sends Letter to Putin Ahead of Talks With US
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, March 21, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, briefing Moscow on the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the United States.
Khamenei also sent his top diplomat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, to Moscow, where on Thursday he met with Putin and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to deliver Khamenei’s letter. During their meetings, they discussed Iran’s nuclear program, last week’s US-Iran negotiations in Oman, and efforts to expand bilateral cooperation and address regional developments.
Thursday’s high-level meeting came just days before a second round of talks between Tehran and Washington, scheduled to take place in Rome this weekend.
Since taking office in January, US President Donald Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran aimed at cutting the country’s crude exports to zero and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
However, Tehran has refused to halt its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable.
Last month, Trump threatened to bomb Iran and impose secondary tariffs if the country does not reach an agreement with Washington to curb its nuclear program.
Russia has said that any military strike against Iran would be “illegal and unacceptable.” As an increasingly close ally of Tehran, Moscow plays a crucial role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West, leveraging its position as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a signatory to a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will continue to assist in resolving the conflict between the two adversaries.
“The Russian Federation remains ready to do everything within our capabilities to contribute to the settlement of the situation by political and diplomatic means,” Peskov said in a statement.
During his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear deal — known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — between Iran and several world powers, which had imposed temporary limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting harsh, long-standing economic penalties on the Islamist regime in Tehran.
“Regarding the nuclear issue, we always had close consultations with our friends China and Russia. Now it is a good opportunity to do so with Russian officials,” Araghchi told Iranian state media before his meeting in Moscow.
On Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program — reversing his earlier comments, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Iran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold for a “civil nuclear program.”
Although Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has raised concerns over Tehran’s rapid acceleration of uranium enrichment.
The IAEA warned that Iran is enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level and enough to build six nuclear bombs.
Despite Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapon development, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
Russia’s diplomatic role in the US-Iran nuclear talks could be crucial, as Moscow has recently solidified its growing partnership with the Iranian regime.
On Wednesday, Russia’s upper house of parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership agreement with Iran, strengthening military ties between the two countries.
Signed by Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in January, the Strategic Cooperation Treaty will boost collaboration between the two countries in areas such as security services, military drills, warship port visits, and joint officer training.
Iran’s Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said this agreement “stands as one of the most significant achievements in Tehran-Moscow relations.”
“One of the most important commonalities between the two countries is the deep wounds inflicted by the West’s unrestrained unilateralism, which underscores the necessity for broader cooperation in the future,” Jalali told Iranian state media this week.
Under the agreement, neither country will permit its territory to be used for actions that pose a threat to the other, nor will they provide assistance to any aggressor targeting either nation. However, this pact does not include a mutual defense clause of the kind included in a treaty between Russia and North Korea.
The agreement also includes cooperation in arms control, counterterrorism, peaceful nuclear energy, and security coordination at both regional and global levels.
Iran’s growing ties with Moscow come at a time when Tehran is facing increasing sanctions by the US, particularly on its oil industry.
Last year, Iran obtained observer membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. The free trade agreement between Tehran and the union’s member states, set to take effect next month, will eliminate customs tariffs on over 80 percent of traded goods between Iran and Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
The post Iran’s Top Diplomat Meets With Russian Officials, Supreme Leader Sends Letter to Putin Ahead of Talks With US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Rejects Israeli Interim Truce Offer, Says Will Only Release Remaining Hostages for End to Gaza War
Protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, stand near a screen displaying senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya during a rally to show support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen, Oct. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Hamas wants a comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza and swap all Israeli hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel, a senior official from the Palestinian terrorist group said, rejecting Israel‘s offer of an interim truce.
In a televised speech, Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s Gaza chief who leads its negotiating team, said the Iran-backed Islamist group would no longer agree to interim deals, adopting a position that Israel is unlikely to accept and potentially further delaying an end to the conflict.
Instead, Hayya said Hamas was ready to immediately engage in “comprehensive package negotiations” to release all remaining hostages in its custody in return for an end to the Gaza war, the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners [hostages],” said Hayya, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We will not be part of passing this policy.”
Egyptian mediators have been working to revive the January ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in Gaza before it broke down last month, but there has been little sign of progress with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other.
“Hamas’s comments demonstrate they are not interested in peace but perpetual violence. The terms made by the Trump administration have not changed: release the hostages or face hell,” said US National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt.
The latest round of talks on Monday in Cairo to restore the ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said.
Israel had proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to allow hostage releases and potentially begin indirect talks to end the war. Hamas has already rejected one of its conditions – that it lay down its arms. In his speech, Hayya accused Israel of offering a counterproposal with “impossible conditions.”
Hamas released 38 hostages under a ceasefire that began on Jan. 19. In March, Israel‘s military resumed its ground and aerial offensive in Gaza, after Hamas rejected proposals to extend the truce without ending the war.
Israeli officials say that the offensive will continue until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Gaza is demilitarized. Hamas insists it will free hostages only as part of a deal to end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.
The post Hamas Rejects Israeli Interim Truce Offer, Says Will Only Release Remaining Hostages for End to Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Says Chinese Satellite Firm Supporting Houthi Attacks on American Interests
A Houthi fighter mans a machine gun mounted on a truck during a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The US State Department on Thursday accused a Chinese firm, Chang Guang Satellite Technology, of directly supporting attacks on US interests by Iran-backed Houthi fighters and called this “unacceptable.”
Earlier, the Financial Times cited US officials as saying that the satellite company, linked to China’s military, was supplying Houthi rebels with imagery to target US warships and international vessels in the Red Sea.
“We can confirm the reporting that Chang Guang Satellite Technology Company Limited is directly supporting Iran-backed Houthi terrorist attacks on US interests,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular news briefing.
“China consistently attempts … to frame itself as a global peacemaker … however, it is clear that Beijing and China-based companies provide key economic and technical support to regimes like Russia, North Korea and Iran and its proxies,” she said.
Bruce said the assistance by the firm to the Houthis, a US-designated terrorist group, had continued even though the United States had engaged with Beijing on the issue.
“The fact that they continue to do this is unacceptable,” she said.
The spokesperson for China’s Washington embassy, Liu Pengyu, said he was not familiar with the situation, so had no comment. The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China is Washington’s main strategic rival, and the latest charge comes as the two economic and military superpowers are in a major standoff over trade in which US President Donald Trump has dramatically ramped up tariffs on Chinese goods.
The post US Says Chinese Satellite Firm Supporting Houthi Attacks on American Interests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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