Leading Ladies

This week on Unorthodox: America’s most badass Supreme Court Justice and TV’s most visible rabbi.

Our Jewish guest is MSNBC reporter Irin Carmon, whose new book, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is the rare biography that seamlessly includes rap lyrics, annotations of Ginsburg’s legal writings, and a photograph of Ginsburg and fellow Justice Antonin Scalia atop an elephant in India. She tells us about RBG’s recent turn as meme-inspiration and feminist pop culture icon, her important role on the Supreme Court today, and the octogenarian’s impressive workout routine.

Our non-Jewish guest is actress Kathryn Hahn, who tells us what it’s like to regularly play Jewish characters (see: Transparent, Afternoon Delight, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days). She explains how she prepared for her latest role as Rabbi Raquel Fein on Jill Soloway’s Amazon hit Transparent, which returns Friday with Season 2. She asks the panel about Judaism’s earliest female rabbis.

This episode also features a special song from our in-house Jewbadour, Jim Knable.

Our next episode will be a live taping on Dec. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Washington, D.C. JCC, in Washington, D.C. You can buy tickets here.

We love to hear from you! Send comments, complaints, and questions to [email protected].

Unorthodox is a smart, fresh, fun weekly take on Jewish news and culture hosted by Mark Oppenheimer, Stephanie Butnick, and Liel Leibovitz. You can listen to individual episodes here or subscribe on iTunes.