Ruchie Freier – judge, grandmother and first elected Hasidic official in the US

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Published: 20 November 2017

Last updated: 4 March 2024

JUST BEFORE THE High Holy Days, Judge Rachel Freier, 52, was rushing around her kitchen, as she perpetually is. She had just cooked a salmon dish for Sabbath dinner. She was talking to her daughter in Israel on her headset.

She was at a countertop, cutting apples and wrapping tuna salad sandwiches to take to work, because at night court in Brooklyn, where she presides, there’s little to eat that’s kosher.

Stepping outside her townhouse in Borough Park, Brooklyn, she climbed into her purple and white minivan emblazoned with the emblems of the female volunteer emergency medical service she founded in her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. A trained paramedic, she keeps her medical bags in her vehicle, just in case.

“My car is like my second home,” she said.

FULL STORY Judge Ruchie, the Hasidic superwoman of night court (New York Times)

Photo: Judge Rachel Freier in Borough Park, an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in Brooklyn (NYT)