“We can have babies every year, but just being an EMT is something we can’t do?” Rachel “Ruchie” Freier, lawyer and founder of an all-women Hasidic EMT unit in Brooklyn, wonders in the trailer for 93 Queen.
The documentary, from filmmaker Paula Eiselt, follows a group of Hasidic women forming their own Hatzolah, the volunteer EMT service for Orthodox communities. Hatzolah is made up entirely of men, which makes it awkward when volunteers need to assist women, especially those in labor, because in Orthodox communities men and women who aren’t family are technically not allowed to touch each other.
In response to that awkwardness, Hasidic women have been fighting to create their own EMT corps for years now, and Eiselt followed Freier’s efforts from 2013 to 2018 with her film, Gothamist reports. “If someone is invading your privacy, and you’re a woman, you want that person to be a woman,” Freier says.
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