Trailblazing Brooklyn judge Rachel Freier recounts difficult return from Israel
NEW YORK -- Acting New York Supreme Court Judge Rachel Freier is believed to be the first Hasidic Jewish woman to sit on the bench. She is also the Director of Ezras Nashim, the first and only all-women volunteer ambulance service in the nation.
She and her family were on vacation in Israel when emergency sirens began ringing over Jerusalem last Saturday.
"You see mothers in their nightgowns jumping out of bed, grabbing the children, running into the secure area. The emotional turmoil, the anxiety, the not knowing what's going on, it was really frightening because it was still the holiday for us," Freier tells CBS 2's Hannah Kliger.
When they learned of the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas, her family, like countless others, tried to find ways to get back home.
"I met many stranded Americans many American Jews in airports who said they're just going to the airport, going to stand there and wait till they get a ticket, not knowing what the destination was going to be," she recalls.
Several cancelled flights later, she found herself bound for Athens, then London, then finally home to New York Thursday night.
"When we got to the airport for our flight, to Athens, I heard that a few hours before there was a missile that was aimed at the airport so a siren went off at the airport, with all the passengers being told, run, run to the security and leave your luggage, grab your children and run," she says.
Her daughter, Leah Freier Levine, serves as Ezras Nashim's Chief Operating Officer. The ambulance non-profit aims to serve Jewish women during medical emergencies. She says seeing the thousands of traumatized and displaced wives whose husbands were drafted to defend Israel from Hamas, sprung the group into action, too.
"So many organizations and private people were sending letters to the soldiers in the Army," Levine says. "And I was thinking, what about the women, the wives? They would also benefit from letters from their sisters in America, all over the world, to show that they care."
They launched a letter writing campaign for women, by women, to provide moral support and see what kind of things are needed to help them now.
"I just think of myself as a wife and as a mother. I can't even imagine what it would be if my husband was drafted into an army," Levine says.
"They were flying with tears in their eye with their babies in their arm. They were really unsure of what the future would bring," Freier recalls of the flight home.
They say the campaign goes back to the group's mission to give women dignity in an emergency.
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