She was born as
Hortense Wittstein in
the Bronx on December 16, 1912, to Bessie and Rubin J. Wittstein. She attended
Hunter College High School. She graduated from
Hunter College in 1934 and earned her law degree from
Columbia Law School in 1937 and went to work at her father's
law firm. She left her father's law firm in 1944 to marry Dr. Milton Gabel, a
United States Army dentist stationed at
Fort Hood, Texas. Gabel was appointed to the New York State Supreme Court in 1975. She was known as a compassionate judge who supported civil rights and women's causes. In 1986, she was named judge of the year by the
National Association of Women Judges, an organization she helped found in 1979. After a two-month-long trial, Gabel was acquitted in December 1988 of charges that she had reduced Andy Capasso's alimony payments in exchange for Bess Myerson hiring Gabel's daughter Sukhreet to a $19,000 position as a special assistant. Gabel died of
heart failure at age 77 on December 6, 1990. ==References==