(Jewish Group) She was Ruth Bader Ginsburg's friend and frequent dining partner -- was that kosher?

[Behind the Aegis]

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not the only prominent guest at NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg’s dinner table. Totenberg, whose legal affairs beat includes the Supreme Court, has hosted Justices Antonin Scalia, Stephen Breyer, Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William Brennan Jr., among others.

After-hours mingling among Washington journalists, politicians and power brokers is hardly a state secret. Still, who knew that Supreme Court justices were so amenable to dinner invites from reporters?

“I thought it was always worth getting to know the people I covered,” Totenberg explains in her new book, “Dinners with Ruth.” “In my brash youth, it never occurred to me that some might view my approach as unseemly.”

Totenberg’s book is subtitled “a memoir on the power of friendships.” Among the collegial relationships she highlights are those with fellow NPR veterans Linda Wertheimer and Cokie Roberts, who died of cancer in 2019. They formed a powerful support system for one another, Totenberg writes, as well as for younger, female journalists learning the public-radio ropes.

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