Erev Shabbat Service & Inspiring Women of CRS Celebration
Friday, January 23, 2026 • 6:00 PM - 7:15 PM
Join us for Erev Shabbat Services where we celebrate Inspiring Women of CRS. This year, we are celebrating women judges in our Rodeph Sholom community. During services, we will hear from the Honorable Helen Freedmen, Dina Bakst, and Lucy Lang.
Please join us as we recognize their commitment to justice, leadership, and service and celebrate the women of our Rodeph Sholom community.
Livestream available on our website and Facebook.
Meet The Speakers:
Helen E. Freedman was a New York State Court Judge for 36 years, 29 as a trial judge and 7 as an appellate judge. As a trial judge, she managed all New York State asbestos litigation, other mass action litigation, and the homeless families with children cases. She also served in the Commercial Division of the New York County Supreme Court for eight years.
Helen was a leading member of Court System’s Pattern Jury Instructions Committee for thirty years. She was appointed to the New York State and Federal Judicial Council and is now on its Advisory Board. She authored New York Objections, a book on trial practice and evidence, which she revised every year for 16 years. She wrote legal articles on asbestos litigation, mass torts, medical malpractice, commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution. She has worked as an arbitrator and mediator since 2015.
Helen is an ardent American history buff and for the past nine years served as editor-in-chief of Judicial Notice, a publication of the Historical Society of the New York Courts. She is Secretary of the Board of Trustees of that Society. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Association to Benefit Children. After leaving the Bench at the end of 2014, she and her husband Henry successfully represented seven asylum applicants in Immigration Court. They have continued to help filling out asylum and employment forms for immigrants at CRS and elsewhere.
Helen and Henry have been members of CRS since 1973. Working with the late Rabbi Hirschberg, Helen founded the Community Concerns Committee (Social Action Committee) in 1981 and served as its chair until 1995. She was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1982-1991. Both of her daughters became Bat Mitzvah and were confirmed at CRS as were four of her six grandchildren. She now helps Henry deliver food for Backpack Buddies.
She is a graduate of Smith College and NYU School of Law. Among other awards she has received are the CRS Meyer Nathans Service Award (1994,) an American Bar Association Award for Judicial Independence (1998), and a Smith College Medal (awarded for her “Judicial Courage and Compassion”) (2000).
Dina Bakst is a Founder, Senior Advisor, and President Emerita of A Better Balance (ABB), a national legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that workers can care for themselves and their loved ones without jeopardizing their economic security. For 18 years, Dina led ABB’s pioneering efforts to combat gender discrimination and secure fair workplace protections- such as paid sick time, paid family leave, and pregnancy accommodations- in more than 40 states and localities, benefiting millions of working families nationwide. Representative Jerry Nadler credits her 2012 New York Times op-ed, “Pregnant and Pushed Out of a Job,” as the inspiration for the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). She testified twice before Congress to champion the bill, and after a decade-long campaign led by ABB, the landmark PWFA was signed into law in December 2022.
Dina’s advocacy has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and other major outlets. She played a pivotal role in the first pregnancy-accommodation class action against Walmart, resulting in a $14 million settlement benefiting thousands of workers. Her work has been recognized with the 2021 Heinz Award for the Economy, the inaugural Visionary Women Award for Women’s Economic Empowerment in 2022, and inclusion in Timemagazine’s 2020 list of “16 People and Groups Fighting for a More Equal America.” She was also named a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School and is the co-author of the award-winning book Babygate: How to Survive Pregnancy and Parenting in the American Workplace. Dina earned her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Michigan.
Join us for Erev Shabbat Services where we celebrate Inspiring Women of CRS. This year, we are celebrating women judges in our Rodeph Sholom community. During services, we will hear from the Honorable Helen Freedmen, Dina Bakst, and Lucy Lang.
Please join us as we recognize their commitment to justice, leadership, and service and celebrate the women of our Rodeph Sholom community.
Livestream available on our website and Facebook.
Meet The Speakers:
Helen E. Freedman was a New York State Court Judge for 36 years, 29 as a trial judge and 7 as an appellate judge. As a trial judge, she managed all New York State asbestos litigation, other mass action litigation, and the homeless families with children cases. She also served in the Commercial Division of the New York County Supreme Court for eight years.
Helen was a leading member of Court System’s Pattern Jury Instructions Committee for thirty years. She was appointed to the New York State and Federal Judicial Council and is now on its Advisory Board. She authored New York Objections, a book on trial practice and evidence, which she revised every year for 16 years. She wrote legal articles on asbestos litigation, mass torts, medical malpractice, commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution. She has worked as an arbitrator and mediator since 2015.
Helen is an ardent American history buff and for the past nine years served as editor-in-chief of Judicial Notice, a publication of the Historical Society of the New York Courts. She is Secretary of the Board of Trustees of that Society. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Association to Benefit Children. After leaving the Bench at the end of 2014, she and her husband Henry successfully represented seven asylum applicants in Immigration Court. They have continued to help filling out asylum and employment forms for immigrants at CRS and elsewhere.
Helen and Henry have been members of CRS since 1973. Working with the late Rabbi Hirschberg, Helen founded the Community Concerns Committee (Social Action Committee) in 1981 and served as its chair until 1995. She was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1982-1991. Both of her daughters became Bat Mitzvah and were confirmed at CRS as were four of her six grandchildren. She now helps Henry deliver food for Backpack Buddies.
She is a graduate of Smith College and NYU School of Law. Among other awards she has received are the CRS Meyer Nathans Service Award (1994,) an American Bar Association Award for Judicial Independence (1998), and a Smith College Medal (awarded for her “Judicial Courage and Compassion”) (2000).
Dina Bakst is a Founder, Senior Advisor, and President Emerita of A Better Balance (ABB), a national legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that workers can care for themselves and their loved ones without jeopardizing their economic security. For 18 years, Dina led ABB’s pioneering efforts to combat gender discrimination and secure fair workplace protections- such as paid sick time, paid family leave, and pregnancy accommodations- in more than 40 states and localities, benefiting millions of working families nationwide. Representative Jerry Nadler credits her 2012 New York Times op-ed, “Pregnant and Pushed Out of a Job,” as the inspiration for the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). She testified twice before Congress to champion the bill, and after a decade-long campaign led by ABB, the landmark PWFA was signed into law in December 2022.
Dina’s advocacy has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and other major outlets. She played a pivotal role in the first pregnancy-accommodation class action against Walmart, resulting in a $14 million settlement benefiting thousands of workers. Her work has been recognized with the 2021 Heinz Award for the Economy, the inaugural Visionary Women Award for Women’s Economic Empowerment in 2022, and inclusion in Timemagazine’s 2020 list of “16 People and Groups Fighting for a More Equal America.” She was also named a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School and is the co-author of the award-winning book Babygate: How to Survive Pregnancy and Parenting in the American Workplace. Dina earned her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Michigan.
