Hatzalah asks court to arrest founder of Florida-based Jewish ambulance service that employs women

New York-based Jewish ambulance service Chevra Hatzalah is attempting to snuff out the same group in Florida — as a result of they make use of feminine EMTs, the founding father of the Sunshine State-based volunteer program claims.

When Isaac Hersh, 30, began Hatzalah of Palm Seaside and Hatzalah of South Florida final 12 months — modeled off the Large Apple’s Chevra Hatzalah EMS corp — he was proud to be giving again to his Orthodox Jewish group.

However now Hersh says he’s drowning in authorized charges after Chevra Hatzalah sued him in November for utilizing a part of its identify. He alleges the go well with is definitely a ploy by the Large Apple service to take care of market management and punish him for hiring ladies.

Permitting ladies to be EMTs is “a extremely controversial transfer within the eyes of Chevra Hatzalah, who has a strict coverage of orthodox males being the only applicant allowed to affix in most capacities,” Hersh mentioned in an announcement to The Submit.

Nonetheless, “our preliminary response was shock,” he mentioned of the lawsuit, including it’s “inconceivable to assume that one lifesaving non-profit group would behave like this to a different.”

In its 12-page grievance, Chevra Hatzalah, legally named Hatzoloh Included, claimed Hersh infringed upon and counterfeited its registered service marks.

The go well with makes no point out of feminine EMTs. However Hersh says he believes the impetus for the grievance was the truth that he employs each women and men.

Earlier than founding the group, which he has since renamed JVAC (Jewish Volunteer Ambulance Corp), Hersh mentioned he consulted with main Boca Raton Rabbinic leaders and received written approval to permit ladies to carry out any and all roles in his volunteer ambulance service.

In the meantime, Chevra Hatzalah operates as a male-only group with no intention of adjusting. The group even went to lengths attempting to cease an all-female New York-based Jewish EMS service, Ezras Nashim, claiming it could be conceited for girls to be EMTs, The Submit reported in 2019.

Chevra Hatzalah, in its go well with, claims Hersh’s Florida EMS corp would deliberately “trigger confusion within the market.” It cited a South Florida Solar-Sentinel article through which Hersh mentioned his group “has been serving Jewish communities all through the globe for the reason that Nineteen Sixties.”

However the Boca Raton dad pushed again on Chevra Hatzalah’s claims.

“The phrase ‘Hatzalah’ actually interprets to the phrase ‘rescue’ in Hebrew and is utilized with related volunteer EMS organizations each nationally and internationally which can be impartial of New York’s Chevra Hatzalah,” he mentioned.

Even inside the New York space, there are Jewish EMS teams not affiliated with Chevra Hatzalah that use “Hatzalah” of their names, The Submit has discovered.

Hersh believes one more reason behind the lawsuit is Chevra Hatzalah’s drive for whole market monopolization.

Six months after submitting the go well with, the registered nonprofit has spent greater than $150,000 combating Hersh, two sources with direct information of the group’s interior workings advised The Submit.

One supply mentioned he believes the quantity could also be nearer to $250,000.

“That is cash that they obtained from donors to assist sick individuals,” a second supply mentioned, including affected person care must be their precedence. “Donors don’t care about their trademark or any nonsense like that.

“Their curiosity is controlling all the pieces they really feel is linked to them even in a really distant method from their group… They act like Moses got here down from the mountain and gave them permission to do no matter they need to do,” the supply added.

Chevra Hatzalah declined to remark. In an April 1 court docket submitting, they requested Hersh be “positioned below home arrest by the US Marshals” for not absolutely complying with a preliminary injunction.

Hersh mentioned he and his authorized staff have taken intensive steps to ensure JVAC — which is already in operation and has local people assist — is in full compliance of the court docket’s orders.

Others acquainted with Chevra Hatzalah mentioned the group is notoriously aggressive.

One in every of its divisions, Queens Hatzolah, is at the moment being accused of intimidating and blackmailing locals in Kew Backyard Hills into silence for opposing an ambulance depot they need to construct on a bucolic block. 

“That is textbook primarily based on all the pieces we have now seen and heard from them,” one other supply mentioned of the go well with towards Hersh. “For many years this has been the MO of the group.”