Rachel Freier made history by becoming the first Hasidic woman to hold US public office

Impact

History has been made once again.

Rachel Freier became a civil court judge in New York City on Friday, becoming the first Hasidic Jewish woman to be sworn into public office in the United States. Freier, 51, won her seat for Brooklyn's 5th Judicial District with a 74% landslide vote in November's general election. 

Freier had garnered nearly 41% of the primary vote in defeating opponents Jill Epstein and Morton Avigdor. 

"One of my missions is to prove to the girls out there that you can be devotedly religious and not have to compromise your standards to be successful in the business or professional world," Freier told the New York Daily News.

Freier, a graduate of Brooklyn Law School, didn't become a lawyer until she was 40. Before that, the mother of six founded and operated a female-led volunteer paramedic ambulance service. Freier named it Ezras Nashim, which translates to "helping women" in Hebrew, according to the Daily News. She also volunteered with the Flatlands Ambulance Corps and became a paramedic in 2015.

"It's an incredible feeling of taking what I learned from my home and helping someone from a different community, and I want to be able to do the same thing on the bench," Freier said.