Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month: Inclusion is about connections

Hebrew teacher Marian Leimovici says friendship with her student, Tamir participant Lee Waxman, is “one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had in my life.”

Tamir mission statement: “Tamir is a proud and caring team of participants, families, volunteers and professionals dedicated to assisting people with developmental disabilities realize their potential in a supportive Jewish environment through opportunities for personal growth and community involvement.”

By Jodi Green

Coordinator of Judaic Outreach and Inclusion

Tamir

Twice annually, the National Consortium on Developmental Disabilities holds its Leadership Institute at the University of Delaware. The Consortium is a partnership of 17 national developmental disabilities organizations and is the North American centre for research and leadership training for professionals in the field. This year, I was privileged to be the third Tamir representative in recent years to attend the Institute alongside 28 professionals from across North America.

During the week-long conference, participants learn about trends in the field, examine how they may become better leaders and network, all with the backdrop of improving the lives of the people we support.

A major theme of the conference was community inclusion. All week I was thinking about ways Tamir and our Ottawa community might work together better to improve inclusion. What policies and practices could be designed to identify and remove physical, communication, and attitudinal barriers that hamper the ability of people with developmental and other disabilities to fully participate and experience a deep sense of belonging and attachment to Jewish life?

Lee Waxman is one of the three original residents of Tamir. He has been a member of Agudath Israel, now Kehillat Beth Israel, for 35 years. He is a regular at Shabbat services and cherishes Saturday mornings with the congregation. However, one thing was missing. While he has the whole service memorized, he could not read Hebrew. Recently, he asked for help to learn.

Through community connections, a teacher was found for Lee and classes began last October. Since then, his Hebrew skills have greatly improved, but what’s more special is that he and the teacher have formed a friendship.

“I recently started teaching Hebrew to Lee and it has been one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had in my life. We have had some very interesting conversations on halachah and other topics pertaining to the Jewish holidays. I look forward to seeing Lee weekly and spending this special time,” said Marian Leimovici.

Lee’s new learning experience, and their new friendship, came about through community connections, community partnership. It was a meeting with an executive director that led to a meeting with a rabbi that led to identifying the Hebrew teacher.

We have been reaching out to identify other opportunities for interaction between those supported by Tamir and the larger community. I’m excited to report that Tamir participants now attend events sponsored by AJA 50+ at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre. Our participants chose to attend the weekly music program on Tuesday afternoons. The Ottawa Jewish Community School creates a weekly Torah story sheet that we distribute to all our homes for use at their Shabbat dinners. Participants can read, or be read to, about the parsha, complete the word games, and learn a little Hebrew.

In March, Tamir will be baking hamentaschen and assembling mishloach manot with the Emerging Generation group of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa. After the baking and assembling is done, we will deliver the baskets together to family, friends, and those in need as part of Tikkun Olam. By the way, we will be baking in Hebrew with the help of Marian, Lee’s teacher!

Inclusion, in large part, is about connections. There are so many ways for families and individuals in the community to become involved. Light Shabbat candles with people at Tamir homes. Lead or co-lead Kiddush and Hamotzi on a Friday evening. Come visit a new friend on a Saturday and play cards or checkers. Let’s find a time to create Purim masks, fry latkes, or bake challah together. There is so much we can learn from each other and so much more we can accomplish and benefit from together.

During Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month, let us all reflect upon people with any kind of disability in our community who may be prevented from entering the same places we do, enjoying the same experiences we enjoy, who long to feel included. As I reflect upon my experience at the Leadership Institute, I am excited at the prospect of Tamir and the entire community working more closely together to ensure every Jewish person has ample opportunity to experience a strong sense of belonging and to feel welcomed as full citizens of our Jewish community in Ottawa.

Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month: Lessons on how we should treat people with disabilities begin in Bible, expert explains

Ora Horn Prouser is academic dean of the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York.

Ora Horn Prouser, who speaks at the SJCC on February 20, says the Bible has much to teach us about disabilities and inclusivity. Louise Rachlis reports.

While we sometimes see the issue of disability as “being of today,” says Ora Horn Prouser, “it has been important for millennia.”

Horn Prouser, CEO and academic dean of the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, N.Y., is keynote speaker at “Limping Toward the Promised Land: How the Bible Pioneers Inclusion,” a Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month event taking place Thursday, February 20, 7 pm, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC).

She is the author of Esau’s Blessing: How the Bible embraces those with Special Needs, as well as many articles about making the Bible speak to existential concerns, specifically regarding ethical dilemmas and individual growth.

The event is presented by Tamir and co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, JOIN (Jewish Ottawa Inclusion Network), Jewish Family Services of Ottawa and Kehillat Beth Israel.

Horn Prouser told the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin that her interest in the topic was piqued when her family was young.

“I was very involved in my children’s schooling, at the day school in our area, where it was very clear to me that the children, even with minor disabilities, were not receiving the services that were needed,” she said.

She began doing a lot of reading about disabilities like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a condition in which a person has trouble paying attention and focusing on tasks, and has trouble sitting still.

“I went to a lecture where the speaker said Esau was ‘impulsive.’ I leaned over and said ‘Ha, Esau had ADHD.’ I put it together. I really was joking at the time, but I loved that lecture and was thinking about the topic. I realized that right there in the biblical text, the personality type has always been there.”

Horn Prouser did further study, looking for other references in the Bible to people differently involved. Disability studies was still relatively new, she said, and not a lot of information was available.

“Once I started, it was very enlightening both from a scholarly point of view, and then regarding the contemporary Jewish community, and what our responsibilities are. It impacts on our communal priorities in terms of serving all communities.”

Horn Prouser served as adjunct faculty at the Jewish Theological Seminary for 20 years and has consulted on the development of Bible curriculum through the Matok Torah Curriculum Development Project and the Day School Hebrew Bible Curriculum Project.

In Esau’s Blessing, Horn Prouser looks at Biblical characters who exhibit signs of ADHD, depression, intellectual disabilities, speech impediments, gifted learning, and physical disabilities, and discusses how the Bible can guide us in responding with acceptance and compassion.

Horn Prouser plans to begin her address in Ottawa by providing an understanding of disabilities in the Bible and then move into “our responsibility to the full contemporary Jewish community.”

“The text contains a fair number of characters with a number of disabilities. It really enhances and widens our understanding of what it means to be in God’s image in a beautiful way,” she said.”

“For example, Jacob the Patriarch was physically disabled after an altercation and had a limp. When we study these texts in general, people will think Moshe had a speech issue – but he had it his whole life. How did it impact the rest of his life? Jacob continued to have that limp. We forget that these characters are full individuals.”

She hopes to make her Ottawa audience “really feel that inclusivity is deeply Jewish, and to be really proud of our ancient text… I hope it will make people go back and look at the Biblical text they know and are already comfortable with, and find new things.”

Tickets for “Limping Toward the Promised Land: How the Bible Pioneers Inclusion” with Ora Horn Prouser are $18 and available at www.tamir.ca or by contacting Jodi Green at jodigreen@tamir.ca or 613-725-3519, ext. 115.