93Queen

Streaming video - 2018

This is the inspirational story of Rachel “Ruchie” Freier, a no-nonsense Hasidic lawyer and mother of six who is determined to shake up the boy’s club in her community by creating Ezras Nashim, the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City. In the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, EMS corps have long been the province of men. Though the neighborhood is home to the largest volunteer ambulance corps in the world, that organization has steadfastly banned women from its ranks. Now Ruchie and a group of tenacious Hasidic women are risking their reputations and the futures of their children to provide dignified emergency medical care to the Hasidic women and girls of Borough Park. Through it all, we see them grapp...ling to balance their faith with their nascent feminism, even as they are confronted by the patriarchal attitudes that so dominate Hasidic society. With unprecedented insider access, 93QUEEN offers a unique portrayal of a group of empowered religious women who are taking matters into their own hands to change their own community from within. Official Selection at the **Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival**. *"Brings an instinctive yet clear-eyed sympathy for these women's remarkable story, joined with an ability to be candid about the difficulties that arose within the group and with the greater Hasidic community." - Kenneth Turan, **The Los Angeles Times*** more