Ezras Nashim, the women-only haredi EMT group, recently received the
okay from New York State to open their service to the public. Ezras
Nashim will compete with Hatzolah – the male-only haredi EMT service –
in heavily Jewish neighborhoods. Hatzolah refused to start a division of
female volunteer EMTs, prompting the creation of Ezras Nashim.
Ezras Nashim founder Ruchie Freier, right, and her mother Sarah Gluck
Ezras Nashim, the women-only haredi EMT group, recently received the okay from New York State to open their service to the public. Ezras Nashim will compete with Hatzolah – the male-only haredi EMT service – in heavily Jewish neighborhoods. Hatzolah refused to start a division of female volunteer EMTs, prompting the creation of Ezras Nashim.
Ezras Nashim expects that most of its calls will involve women in labor.
“The state approval is big. We had to prove to the state that we’re capable of doing this and that there’s a need for it. Now we have to step up our training and fundraise to buy medical equipment,” Ezras Nashim founder Ruchie Freier told Ha’aretz.
Forty women reportedly signed on to volunteer have already trained as EMTs. A dozen more are currently taking EMT training.
“I want people to understand that this idea was really modesty driven, and people to understand who our women are. With religious-hasidish women, sometimes people have the impression that we’re not educated and we’re oppressed and only stay home. That’s so not who we are. Many of us have gone on for higher education. And we don’t look at our modesty as a burden. We want to raise the level of modesty. We’re proud of it. At the same time, we’re not oppressed…[when a woman in labor calls the all-male Hatzolah] her modesty is totally trampled,” Freier reportedly said.
Read it all here.
[Hat Tip: Joel Katz.]