New York State Supreme Court Gets its First Female Hasidic Judge

Bais Ya’akov-educated Rachel ‘Ruchie’ Freier tapped to join the New York State Supreme Court, becoming the first Hasidic woman to ever serve on New York’s top court.

By: WIN Staff & TJVNews.com – worldisraelnews.com

The New York State Supreme Court welcomed a new judge recently – its first female Hasidic justice.

Rachel “Ruchie” Freier, a justice on the New York City Criminal Court, was tapped last December to join the New York State Supreme Court as an acting judge, filling a vacancy on the bench.

As an acting Supreme Court judge, Freier will have to face an election this summer to retain her position.

The Borough Park native was raised in a haredi-Orthodox home in Brooklyn, and attended a Bais Ya’akov high school, where she studied legal stenography.

Freier, 57, is the mother of six children, a paramedic and executive director of Ezras Nashim Volunteer Ambulance Service. Even before becoming the first Hasidic woman to hold public office in the country, she had gained national acclaim breaking down barriers to found the all-women’s ambulance corps in 2014. A documentary, entitled “93Queen,” (named after the radio code given to the group by the FDNY) spotlights Ezras Nashim’s triumph over local biases and adversity from its male-only counterpart, Hatzolah.

“The concept of modesty is a primary aspect of our life,” Freier told The Post at the time. “We take pride in [it], from how we cover our hair to how we interact with men. Women were put into situations where they had to expose their bodies to men who weren’t their husbands.”  She said it was important to have female EMTs so as to spare modest women from having to be seen by men during their emergencies and intimate moments.

Freier was married at the age of 19.  Just going to law school held many barriers for her.  She enrolled in college at the age of 30, when she already had a house full of kids.  She achieved her law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 2005.  She says her experience juggling a household helps give her expertise in domestic cases.  “The matrimonial cases, the divorce cases, the ones that affect families — those are all in the [state] supreme Court,” she said. “I think I bring a very unique perspective, a unique mindset,” she told the Post.

“My life is always campaigning for something, pushing for something,” Freier added. “It was pushing to help the women start their own EMT group. Then I had to become the director. Then I was pushing to run for civil court. Then I was pushing for the organization to get their ambulance license. Is this my destiny? I always seem to be pushing for something.”

Freier first worked in law as a paralegal at the age of 29, before starting her bachelor’s degree at Touro College’s Lander College two years later.

Freier passed the New York State Bar exam in 2006.

Initially working as an intern for then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s Manhattan office, Freier also practiced real estate and business law, before throwing her hat in the ring for a civil court judgeship in 2016.

Running as a Democrat, Freier defeated her Conservative Party opponent nearly three-to-one.

“My story is replete with naysayers every step of the way, whether it was going to college, then law school, opening up a law practice, running for the judgeship,” Freier told CBS News. “Why shouldn’t I try? That God created me as a woman in a Hasidic community with these ambitions and with these dreams, it means that I could make it happen.” (WorldIsraelNews.com)