LONDON: Nadia Kahf, an attorney who was born in Syria, made history when she became the first Superior Court judge in the US who wears a hijab.
Kahf was nominated by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy last year, local media reported. Community leaders, including mayors, council members, school board members and leaders of the New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association, signed a letter in May calling on Senator Kristin Corrado to advance the nomination. More than 700 people also signed an online petition in support of her nomination.
Kahf, the third Muslim woman to serve as US Superior Court judge, took the oath during her swearing-in ceremony last week with her hand on a copy of the Qur’an she inherited from her grandmother.
“I am proud to represent the Muslim and Arab communities in New Jersey in the US,” she said during the ceremony. “I want the younger generation to see that they can practice their religion without fear that they can be who they are. Diversity is our strength, it is not our weakness”
As a lawyer, Kahf specialized in family law and also handled immigration cases. Since 2003, she has been on the board of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights organization.
The day after Kahf’s swearing-in ceremony another woman who wears the Islamic headscarf, family law attorney Dalya Youssef, was also sworn in as a Superior Court judge, this time in Somerset County, also New Jersey.
