In the midst of the Vietnam war, a year after both the Six Day War and the American counter-cultural summer of love, the Israeli government tourist office along with their national airline, El Al, decided it was the right time for a friendship tour of America’s major cities. This story followed the caption: Two young Israeli police women are pictured trying their hand at directing New York’s traffic in the city’s busiest square. Judith Friedman (left) 20, and Rachel Cohen, 19, flanking Traffic Patrolman Guilford Wilcox, are in the United States on a goodwill ‘people to people’ tour sponsored by the Israel Government Tourist Office and El Al, the Israeli airline. Christmas day, 1968, or just Wednesday, as it was known in The Forward, the paper ran eight pages, cost 15 cents and the weather printed on the masthead was “clear, cold and a chilly 35 degrees.” The headline spoke of the USSR and Egypt’s interest in peace talks in the Middle East, and how the astronauts had circled the moon ten times. But, here on earth, the paper featured that showstopper of an amusing diversion: two visiting Israeli policewomen directing traffic in Times Square. The Associated Press also ran a story about these special emissaries. “Traffic is much heavier during rush hour in Tel Aviv,” Friedman, 20, told the AP. But her partner, Rachel Cohen, 19, admitted that Times Square gridlock was “worse than Los Angeles.” After New York, Officers Friedman and Cohen visited their women traffic cop colleagues in Palm Springs, Calif., hit a major shopping spot in L.A.

Also in The Forward that day, immediately below the image of the two Israeli cops, was a photo of then Sen. Strom Thurmond, 66, emerging from his church wedding with his bride of 22 who was formerly an intern on his staff. It seemed women in 1968 were still limited in terms of career fulfillment. The editorial that Christmas day referenced the Vietnam war, currently in a ceasefire, and was written by The Forward’s editor-in-chief, Lazar Fogelman who would retired shortly thereafter. “Let it be known we're happy the fighting in Vietnam has stopped for the Christmas holiday,” wrote Fogelman. “We are in favor of stopping the bloodshed for every Christian holiday as well as the Jewish, Buddhist and all other religious and non-religious ones.” Officer Friedman also spoke about war in an interview with a Palm Springs paper. “Here in the States you don’t know what war really means,” Friedman told the Desert Sun. “It’s always far, far away like in Vietnam. While I was working at the airport during the \[Six Day War] we would watch the bombers come and go.” The paper also went into depth with Officer Cohen, who faced sexism in her role as a traffic cop. “Whenever I give a man a ticket he starts calling me ‘sweetheart’ and ‘honey’ and tries to talk me into not giving him a ticket,” said Cohen. She went on to say that this type of manipulation never worked. “It is a fact that women officers are much rougher, than the men officers. If a woman decides to give a ticket nobody can talk her out of it.”

Officers Friedman and Cohen were far from the first policewomen to be covered by The Forward. As early as 1928 the paper featured, as part of a pictorial tour of Russia, Moscow policewomen in full regalia. Here's that caption: “ARRESTING ATTENTION...—attractive policewomen of Moscow in their full regalia.” Another story from 1928 told of how working women are said to have been protected by London police women, shown in a Forward pictorial feature. “That's how London is protecting its girl inhabitants from intruders. ‘Mashing’ is said to have suffered a severe setback ever since these police women have gotten on the job” the caption said. On January 23, 1930, The Forverts reported that a “new crime prevention bureau started its work yesterday with 66 police women” in New York. The policewomen’s task would be to question and counsel young people out in the streets late at night in an effort to help them seek community resources and prevent crime, The New York Times said.

Two of the most groundbreaking women in the New York Police Department were Jewish officers. Felicia Shpritzer and Gertie Schimmel changed everything in 1963 when Shpritzer sued after being denied the right to take the sargeant’s exam on the basis of sex. She won the case with Schimmel’s help and the two became the first two women to be promoted to sargeant in NYPD history. Both Shpritzer and Schimmel had 20-year perfect records as cops on the force and both attended Hunter College, seen above, where Schimmel trained to be a high school English teacher and Shpritzer got her degree in mathematics. Born Gertrude Tannenbaum on Dec. 9, 1918, in the Bronx, Gertie Schimmel was the youngest of three children of Jewish immigrants from Austria. Her mother died when she was 16.

Schimmel attended Morris High School and later Hunter College hoping to become a teacher. When she found teaching jobs were scarce, she applied to join the police department, officially joining June 5, 1940, despite her father’s concerns. “I thought he was against it because he felt it was dangerous or something like that,” Ms. Schimmel told Greta Walker in the book “Women Today: 10 Profiles” (1975). “Later, he said he was against it because he thought if I liked the career so much, I wouldn’t want to get married.” Three months after entering the police department, she married Alfred Schimmel, a clerk with the city’s tax department. They raised two sons, Edward and Victor. Hoping to encourage girls to become police officers, Gertrude Schimmel wrote a novel, “Joan Palmer, Policewoman,” published in 1959 or 1960.

Felicia Shpritzer was born on Nov. 12, 1913, in Gloversville, N.Y., but soon moved with her family to New York City, where she graduated from Washington Irving High School. After graduating from Hunter College, she went on to get master's degrees in both speech and police science. Shpritzer was appointed to the force October 30,1942, served almost 20 years in the Juvenile Aid Bureau before she and five other women, including Gertie Schimmel, applied to take a test for possible promotion to the rank of sergeant in May of 1961. Two weeks before the test was held, all six women's applications were rejected. In denying their application, the Civil Service Commission informed women that they were ineligible to take the exam because they were “not permanently employed in an eligible title." In other words, only male police were eligible for promotion to sergeant. Shpritzer appealed the decision and was denied again. With Schimmel’s help, she launched a lawsuit in December of 1961. They won in a unanimous decision in June, 1963. From then on, women would be allowed to take the sergeant’s exam.

Both women took the exam on April 11, 1964, along with 125 other police women, at Brooklyn Technical High School. Ms. Shpritzer and Ms. Schimmel passed the test, gaining their sergeant’s stripes March 12, 1965. ''Pass or fail,'' Shpritzer told The New York Times in 1964, ''I will never regret having made the opportunity available to women.'' On December 19, 1967 both women were promoted to lieutenant.

Gertrude Schimmel went on to earn multiple promotions in the NYPD, becaming the city’s first woman captain, sworn in on August 26, 1971. The story ran near the bottom half of The Forward's front page under the headline “Jewish Woman Sworn in as Police Captain, First Woman Appointed to this Position.” At the City Hall ceremony, the paper wrote “Mrs. Schimmel's face lit up with joy and pride” after being honored and promoted for her service by both the police commissioner and the mayor. Schimmel’s promotion took place on a day when, what The Forward called “militant women,” celebrated the 51st anniversary of the day American women got the right to vote through the 19th amendment. Schimmel told the paper she's not an active member of the women's rights movement, but is a "sympathizer." “Mrs. Schimmel stated she is a strong supporter of women's struggle for full equality,” The Forward said. She then recalled another Jewish policewoman, Lieutenant Felicia Shpritzer and said “she won the major case in court, she deserves the congratulations.” Schimmel was promoted again, this time to deputy chief on March 31, 1978 before retiring in 1981. According to The New York Times, “Schimmel was an avid poker player who competed in professional events into her last years.” She traveled to Las Vegas regularly and spent time in “an undercover role to ferret out gambling rings.” Gertie Schimmel lived to be 96 and died at her Manhattan home in 2015. Felicia Shpritzer retired as a lieutenant in 1976 after 34 years with the police department. In 2000, Shpritzer died at 87 at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan.

The city's policewomen are still fighting for equality. Recently Chief Lori Pollock accused the department of “systematically denying women the opportunity to compete for senior leadership positions,” The New York Times said. Responding to demands for racial justice , NYPD's Chief Chaplain of the historic "Shomrim" fraternal organization Rabbi Alvin Kass, issued a statement on behalf of the group: “We have a duty to join all of our fellow citizens in the long overdue challenge of extirpating racism from this country and this world.” 50 years after Officers Friedman and Cohen’s visit controversy follows Israeli and American police sharing techniques, way beyond \[traffic control] (https://forward.com/news/israel/451144/more-than-1-000-senior-us-police-officers-have-visited-israel-here-s-what/). Officer Guilford Wilcox, last seen helping the visiting Israeli traffic cops at the Times Square photo op was himself investigated for corruption. And The Forward continues to be on it!