Obama’s Supreme Court nominee praises his Jewish grandparents
Source: praag.org
Editor's Note: Merrick Garland makes the Supreme Court of the United States 45% Jewish.
Four out of the nine Supreme Court Justices are Jewish:
Stephen Breyer - Jewish
Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Jewish
Elena Kagan - Jewish
Merrick Garland - Jewish
...
New Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland praised his Jewish grandparents, who he said fled to the US from anti-Semitism in Russia, for putting him in position to be nominated.
Garland was also a longtime prosecutor who helped the Justice Department who oversaw investigations into the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The blast was set off by anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh, who in 2001 was executed for his crimes.
Oklahoma’s senators said Wednesday they don’t want him considered for the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“My family deserves much of the credit for the path that led me here. My grandparents left the Pale of Settlement at the border of western Russia and Eastern Europe in the early 1900s, fleeing anti-Semitism and hoping to make a better life for their children in America,” he said, choking up Wednesday morning in the White House Rose Garden as he accepted President Barack Obama’s nomination.
Born to a Jewish mother, Garland was raised as a Jew.
“For me there can be no higher public service than serving as a member of the US Supreme Court,” said Garland, now the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. “It’s also the greatest gift I’ve ever received.”
Obama called for Garland to be confirmed in a timely fashion, so he could sit with the court in the fall and fully participate in the court’s proceedings. He would fill the Supreme Court seat held by Antonin Scalia until his death last month.
During a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House, Obama said that he chose Garland after an “exhaustive process,” calling the judge “one of America’s sharpest legal minds.”
Source: praag.org
