Ambulance casers
Jewish corps in Fla. claims NY org suing over ‘female EMT’ outrage
New York-based Jewish ambulance service Chevra Hatzalah is trying to snuff out a similar group in Florida — because they employ female EMTs, the founder of the Sunshine State-based volunteer program claims.
When Isaac Hersh, 30, started Hatzalah of Palm Beach and Hatzalah of South Florida last year — modeled off the Big Apple’s Chevra Hatzalah EMS corps — he was proud to be giving back to his Orthodox Jewish community.
But now Hersh says he is drowning in legal fees after Chevra Hatzalah sued him in November for using part of its name.
Hersh alleges the suit is actually a ploy by the New York City service to maintain market control and punish him for hiring women.
Allowing women to be EMTs is “a highly controversial move in the eyes of Chevra Hatzalah, who has a strict policy of Orthodox males being the sole applicant allowed to join in most capacities,” Hersh said in a statement to The Post.
Still, “our initial reaction was shock,” he said of the lawsuit, adding that it was “inconceivable to think that one lifesaving nonprofit organization would behave like this to another.”
In its 12-page complaint, Chevra Hatzalah, legally named Hatzoloh Inc., claimed Hersh infringed upon and counterfeited its registered service marks.
The suit makes no mention of female EMTs. But Hersh says he believes the impetus for the complaint was his employment of both men and women.
Sought rabbis’ blessing
Before founding the group, which he has since renamed JVAC (Jewish Volunteer Ambulance Corps), Hersh said he consulted with leading Boca Raton rabbinic leaders and got written approval to allow women to perform any and all roles in his volunteer ambulance service.
Meanwhile, Chevra Hatzalah operates as a male-only organization with no intention of changing.
The group went to lengths in trying to stop an all-female New Yorkbased Jewish EMS service, Ezras Nashim, claiming it would be immodest for women to be EMTs, The Post reported in 2019.
New York’s Chevra Hatzalah claims in its suit that Hersh was intentionally causing “confusion in the marketplace” with his Florida EMS corps. It cited a South Florida Sun-Sentinel article in which Hersh said his group “has been serving Jewish communities throughout the globe since the 1960s.”
But the Boca Raton dad pushed back on Chevra Hatzalah’s claims.
“The word ‘hatzalah’ literally translates to the word ‘rescue’ in Hebrew and is utilized with similar volunteer EMS organizations both nationally and internationally that are independent of New York’s Chevra Hatzalah,” he said.
What’s in a name
Even within the New York area, there are Jewish EMS groups not affiliated with Chevra Hatzalah that use “hatzalah” in their names, The Post has found.
Six months after filing the suit, Chevra Hatzalah, a registered nonprofit, has spent more than $150,000 fighting Hersh, two sources with direct knowledge of the group’s inner workings told The Post.
One source said he believed the number may be closer to $250,000.
“This is money that they received from donors to help sick people,” a second source said, adding that patient care should be their priority. “Donors don’t care about their trademark or any nonsense like that.
“Their interest is controlling everything . . . They act like Moses came down from the mountain and gave them permission to do whatever they want to do.”
Chevra Hatzalah declined to comment. In an April 1 court filing, it requested that Hersh be “placed under house arrest by the US marshals” for not fully complying with a preliminary injunction.
Hersh said he and his legal team have taken extensive steps to make sure JVAC is in full compliance of the court’s orders.
Others familiar with Chevra Hatzalah said the group is notoriously aggressive.
One of its divisions, Queens Hatzolah, is being accused of intimidating and blackmailing residents in Kew Garden Hills into silence for opposing an ambulance depot it wants to build on a bucolic block.