Barbra Streisand. Photo: Lifescript via Wikimedia Commons
Jewish award-winning singer and actress Barbara Streisand will receive the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award at the Library of Congress on April 22.
“I am deeply honored to receive this award named after one of the iconic and pathbreaking Justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court,” Streisand, 80, tweeted on Wednesday after the announcement was made.
Ginsburg, who was the first Jewish woman to be a Supreme Court justice, established the legacy award with Julie Opperman, chairman of the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, in 2019, a year before she died at the age of 87. The award is presented annually to “an extraordinary woman who has exercised a positive and notable influence on society and served as an exemplary role model in both principles and practice.”
Streisand — a Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award-winning performer — is the fourth person to receive the honor following justice reform advocate and philanthropist Agnes Gund, Queen Elizabeth II and Jewish fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. Opperman said that after giving the award to the Queen of England, the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation is “ecstatic” to present this year’s Woman of Leadership honor to “our own queen of music and film … an unrivaled American cultural icon who has brought her own brand of magic to the entire world.”
“I made a promise to Justice Ginsburg to help preserve her legacy and to ensure that this award that bears her name continues to recognize strong women leaders who have made the world a better place, and I only wish she was here today to celebrate Ms. Streisand with us,” Opperman added.
The Woman in Love singer will be first musical artist to receive the award named after Ginsburg, who was a fan of Streisand’s, according to the Washington Post.
“Women everywhere have benefited from the brilliance and courage of the Hon. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Streisand said in a statement to the publication. “She is an inspiration to us all. She devoted her life to advancing equality and justice, and the world is a better place for it. I am so deeply honored to receive an award in the name of such an extraordinary woman, American hero and an icon to the world.”
Streisand was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor present by the White House, in 2015 and her support of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute resulted in the creation of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center. She was the first woman to direct, produce, write, and star in a major motion picture, and the first female composer to receive an Academy Award.
David Rubenstein, chairman of the Woman of Leadership Award, said, “Barbra Streisand is not only the greatest performing artist in our country’s history, she is also an American who is fully committed to doing whatever she can to enable the country to live up to its founding principles. And let’s not forget, like Justice Ginsburg, she’s from Brooklyn!”
Streisand was nominated for the award by a 12-member committee and chosen unanimously by the voting council.
