Goshen. Dr. Irina Gelman honored with Liberty Bell Award

Orange County Health Commissioner Dr. Irina Gelman was presented with the 2021 Robert N. Isseks, Esq. Liberty Bell Award on June 23 at the Goshen Historic Track.

The award was presented by the Orange County Bar Association, and the Women’s Bar Association of Orange and Sullivan Counties.

The Liberty Bell award recognizes men and women for outstanding community service. Dwas selected for her work during the county’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The theme selected for this year was “advancing the rule of law” during the pandemic.

“Balancing individual rights with the health and safety of the public was no easy task during the pandemic,” said Orange County Court Judge Craig Brown, president of the Bar Association.

“I’m extremely humbled to be honored by the Orange County Bar Association,” said. “This recognition would not be possible without the hard work of the Orange County Department of Health staff. They have my gratitude and I share this award with them.”

Gelman was hired by Orange County in June 2018. She is fluent in Spanish, Russian and Yiddish, and she received her Doctorate of Podiatric Medicine from the New York College of Podiatric Medicine in 2010 and completed her residency at Coney Island Hospital in 2014.

2020 Liberty Bell awards

Orange County Supreme Court Judge Catherine M. Bartlett and Rebekah C. Grohl, an activist from Newburgh who died last January at the age of 22, were honored with the 2020 Liberty Bell awards. The theme for the 2020 Award was Voting Rights and the 19th Amendment, which granted American women the right to vote.

Bartlett accepted the award in memory of her great grandmother, Jessica Lord Cox Henderson, a suffragette. Henderson was jailed in February 1919 while picketing a visit of President Woodrow Wilson in Boston, Massachusetts.