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    Union for Reform Judaism

    Kickoff to Jewish Disability Awareness Month
    February 2, 2009
    Social Action (8 comments)

    By Rabbi Lynne Landsberg
    (First posted at RACblog)
    Rabbi Lynne Landsberg is the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's Senior Advisor on Disability Issues. She is a former Associate Director of the RAC and a former regional director of the URJ's Mid-Atlantic Council.

    This month, February 2009, is the first annual Jewish Disability Awareness Month, recognized by all streams of Judaism (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist) and most, if not all, national Jewish agencies. Local synagogues, organizational chapters and federations are observing Jewish Disability Awareness Month with special programming to educate their members about people with all kinds of disabilities -- physical, intellectual, psychological and more.

    We would never consciously do it, but are we putting a stumbling block before the blind? As Jews, we must understand that serving the community of individuals with disabilities means more than just constructing a ramp to the front door: We shut Jews out by not altering other physical barriers. We shut Jews out by continuing non-inclusive programming and religious education. We shut Jews out< by maintaining attitudes of discomfort and disdain.

    If you or your congregation are on the lookout for programming ideas for Jewish Disability Awareness Month, you can find ideas at any of these Web sites:

    While we're at it, here are a few more options:

    • Check out the Web site for ""Praying with Lior"," about a Jewish boy with disabilities, to see if it is playing locally and/or how to arrange for it to be shown at your synagogue. A home DVD version is not due out until late March, but a newly published "Praying with Lior" Jewish study guide is available.
    • People with disabilities are treated as animals in many countries, as exemplified by extensive research done by Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI), which has produced three disturbing videos on the issue. As such, the URJ is advocating for the signing and ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the US has not signed or ratified. For more information, see www.un.org/disabilities and RatifyNow.org or email the RAC's Disability Legislative Assistant, Jason Fenster.

    Let us use February 2009, Jewish Disability Awareness Month, as our starting point to become truly welcoming, both congregationally and individually. Together let us break down physical, communicative and attitudinal barriers wherever they are. We must come together both as Jews and as Americans to help others to recognize that people with disabilities are people first -- people with unlimited potential who are not to be defined by their disabilities.

    Get more information at the Jewish Family Concerns website, and join in the discussion on their new online forum.

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    Comments

    kathy said:

    I am one who people looks with distain and discomfort. I am one who needs that dose of people contact more so and who needs that dose of inspirations that religion and torah study gives... in the thing called the neverending learning session.

    I know i can get it from online and from books.
    But the people thing escapes me.

    I walk alone.
    I am in a glass bottle... where sound escapes me.
    I am on show and to be ignored.

    I wanted more.
    I wished for one who would talk and ask me more of what i am and what i go through and what i would like to see .. than be shun.

    Deafness is a lonely world.
    Not good in a crowd.
    and i am not a big D but a little d.
    I am deaf but hard of hearing .. not a signer.
    So i am not of the deaf world either.

    I am a nomad.
    A person supposedly who walks alone.
    Some people accept me.
    Others don't.
    The non jewish and secular world seems to accept me.
    But i do not feel accepted in my congregation.
    I walk alone.
    And it makes me question who i am sometimes.

    So it is a long time coming for i tried to spread an awareness and i been shunned for i am only one person and the marjority does not have my problem.

    So i walk alone.

    I wish to see more on disabilities.
    It would be nice if sometimes understanding can help to ease my stumbling block and allow me to be recognized as a person.

    But strange is.... whether the jewish community would accept me as a person or not......

    I am still a jew.

    Bless you guys for opening another door with this article on jewish disability awareness month.

    But it is only a beginning.
    What do you expect to achieve ?
    Are is it for other disabilities since the deafness is not a curable or visually physical situation?

    Boy do i wish i had someone to rap with on this.


    -K
    February 11, 2009 10:25 PM
    kathy said:

    I am curious... what happened .. who .. what .. when .. where and why .. what made this finally become an acknowledgement of the issue?

    I tried so hard to communicate.
    I could not break down any walls.
    I complained (if that was the word for it.)
    I mentioned it to anyone who would listen... from louisiana to florida to washington DC.
    I did a poem on it to express my feelings after Katrina... and it got published in DC.

    And i questioned God... why i had to be whom i was..and could not make a difference. Could not break the sound barrier ..and could not be heard at the very least.

    Wonder... if you wanted to read my poem.
    Actually i did two.
    Poem, or prose.

    But i do not want to reveal my name.
    There are those who knows me .. and may not receive me well i guess.

    I complain to resign from my shul.
    I was told if i was going to resign, not to mention the hearing thing. They do not want to hear it. But that was years ago.. other people were there then .....

    Did the world change yet?
    Am i still a jew?
    Will God accept me ... when i have to walk alone..and i do not have the patience to sit alone in a crowd and not know what is going on ?

    I know the answer to it.
    I am stil a jew.
    It is my belief system.
    It is my logic, my life , my world.
    I am not completely practicing.
    But that awareness is like a fly to honey.
    But people contact escape me in a shul.

    So i am left alone...to wander alone... and be a jew the only way i know how .. and my shul is now thu sermons thru the internet.

    I have more to share if anyone wanted to listen.
    But in the deep south.....
    .... no one wants to listen.

    For they do not understand.
    And do not want to be bother.

    Forgive me writing in.
    Your article came to my attention by chance.
    Serendipity?

    I am provoked to speak up.

    And then i will crawl back into my shell
    And walk alone.
    And watch.

    I had 53 yrs.
    Maybe i can get another 53 yrs?

    -K
    February 11, 2009 11:12 PM
    Shelly Christensen said:

    What do we hope to accomplish by tagging one month out of the year to be "Jewish Disability Awareness Month" anyway? Some shuls and communities have had "Disability" events in years past--a disability Shabbat, an inclusion Havdallah, even special conferences held in accessible buildings to highlight the very issues that Kathy has so poetically articulated.

    Our hope and dream is that we continue to raise awareness every February--and to help communities take the steps necessary to hold community-wide screenings of films, discussions, and panels to communicate that people with disabilities and their families are us.

    My question to all of us is simply this: what will you do, as an individual, and as a member of the Jewish community, to ensure that the visibility of inclusion does not disappear in March, April, and all of the subsequent months? This is our challenge. The momentum of February must become the vision for the rest of the year.

    Rabbi Landsberg provided a list of very useful resources and the Department of Jewish Family Concerns has been working diligently to support our congregations to raise awareness, and act with intention.

    Our community will not be whole until Kathy can participate in meaningful ways in the wonderful circle of Jewish life. And in order to welcome Kathy, and so many other people with disabilities and their families, their voices must be part of the process.

    Inclusion is working--take a look around your congregation and see how people with disabilities are participating as leaders, Torah readers, students and teachers. The same opportunities available to congregants without disabilities can and should be available to all. We are charged with leveling the playing field so that those doors are open to all.

    February 17, 2009 10:27 AM
    Sharon Palay said:

    My name is Sharon Palay. I'm the Chair of the Inclusion Committee of Bet Shalom, my synagogue,in Minnesota.

    I have Cerebral Palsy and was born in North Dakota. I moved to Minnesota 21 years ago because this state has good programs for the disabled. While I was growing up I longed to be a member of a synagogue in a big city. It took me 14 years to find one who would except me for who I am. So I know how you feel and what you are going through. Don't give up, it's worth the journey!

    I would like to share this poem I wrote with you.

    It's called:

    A Person Like You!

    Even though I'm Physically Challenged
    I'm a person like you
    The only difference is I can't do
    All the things you do

    When I want to speak to you
    I know sometimes it may take a little longer
    But I have good things to say

    I know most things you know and I feel
    The way you feel
    I love and laugh and dream and cry
    My heart is just as real

    So if you get to know me
    And if you really care
    You'll find though I am physically challenged
    I have a lot to share
    February 17, 2009 11:34 PM
    Suzanne said:

    American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an international development organization motivated by Judaism's imperative to pursue justice, is committed to supporting disabled people's organizations globally. To learn more about AJWS's work with these groups, read this article on Jewish disabilities month:

    http://www.ajws.org/who_we_are/news/archives/features/taking_jewish_disabilities_awareness_month_global.html
    February 25, 2009 11:21 AM
    Dodi Miller said:

    To see an amzing, caring, group, look to the Society for the Jewish Handicapped, Selwyn Segal Centre(Hostel), in Johannesburg South Africa.
    Started and built with voluntary contributions.
    Today they are battling financially, most of the resident parents and family are no longer with us.
    March 12, 2009 10:56 AM
    Anne Sloman said:

    I am ANGRY when I read some of these comments.
    I am ANGRY as a parent of a menatally disabled GENTLE Man.
    Grow Up, with all your quotations,fancy prose, and biblical references, you have not walked in the Real World.
    Perhaps that is why so many of our Temple Groups who assist the needy in their community, ignore this section.
    Yes, as you say you are Jews.
    THEY ARE JEWS TOO.
    There but for the - - - - - - - go you.
    March 12, 2009 11:10 AM
    Dr. Irma Jacqueline Ozer said:

    Dear Friends,

    We had our first event for our East End Temple Diversity Project and 2010 will be the year we have a disability event. Rabbi Shoshana Leis (Director of Congregational Learning) and will be getting together to plan this event which I hope will address special needs children at Hebrew school, disabled adults in the Reform Jewish community, and people living with disabled spouses as caregivers.

    Any ideas are welcome.

    Irmi
    March 12, 2009 7:28 PM

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