"Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking.” || Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) - Wrote an essay when she was 13 years old which was published in her synagogue bulletin urging congregants to rid themselves of hate and prejudice. The essay, dated June 2, 1946 and titled "One People" was published in Ginsburg’s 2017 book “My Own Words”, which contains a collection of her speeches and writings as well as her thoughts on growing up in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood.

One People

The war has left a bloody trail and many deep wounds not too easily healed. Many people have been left with scars that take a long time to pass away. We must never forget the horrors which our brethren were subjected to in Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps. Then, too, we must try hard to understand that for righteous people hate and prejudice are neither good occupations nor fit companions. "Rabbi Alfred Bettleheim once said: 'Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking'.” In our beloved land families were not scattered, communities not erased nor our nation destroyed by the ravages of the World War.

Yet, dare we be at ease? We are part of a world whose unity has been almost completely shattered. No one can feel free from danger and destruction until the many torn threads of civilization are bound together again. We cannot feel safer until every nation, regardless of weapons or power, will meet together in good faith, the people worthy of mutual association. 

There can be a happy world and there will be once again, when men create a strong bond towards one another, a bond unbreakable by a studied prejudice or a passing circumstance. Then and only then shall we have a world built on the foundation of the Fatherhood of God and whose structure is the Brotherhood of Man.