The Board of Rabbis of Northern California has passed a resolution calling for the razing of all barriers that keep those with disabilities from joining in all aspects of Jewish life.
“For too many people, the gates of participation in Jewish life have been closed due to structural, communicational and attitudinal barriers,” the resolution states.
The board, it says, will take a “leading role” in enabling those with disabilities to participate in synagogue and Jewish community programs.
Rabbi H. David Teitelbaum, the board’s executive director, drafted the resolution after meeting several weeks ago with Abby Kovalsky, director of the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services Disabilities Project.”This has been important to me for some time,” Teitelbaum said. “Many disabled congregants have come to me to talk about their needs. And for many, they are not being met.”
Advocates for the disabled say the resolution is a first step in an uphill journey the Jewish community must undertake to meet its disabled members, long left stranded.
The most widely employed remedies have tended to target the needs of an aging population, said Laurie Bellet, co-director of the Walnut Creek-based Alliance for Jews with Special Needs. For instance, many synagogues have amplifying devices for the hard of hearing, or large print prayerbooks.
But more basic changes to a physical plant or to services and curriculum to accommodate psychiatric or developmental disorders have been a long time coming, advocates say. “I can advise curricular modifications, give support, refer people,” Bellet said. “But other than that there’s not much I can do, because there’s really nothing out there.”
Standing in the way: Money, debates over aesthetics and the lack of a sense of urgency.
“Changes have been slow but they’re happening. That [the resolution] passed so overwhelmingly is a great step,” Kovalsky said. Nevertheless, “It’s a first step.”
Advocates are cheering Redwood City’s Congregation Beth Jacob for installing a ramp to its bimah. It will be completed in July. The synagogue opened a special account, enabling congregants to fund further improvements.
“The entrance into a synagogue so often has steps,” Teitelbaum said. “And most especially, going up to the bimah, which means some people are left out of a very important [moment]. It’s an honor to be called up to the Torah. If they can’t go up, it’s very sad.”
Kovalsky often hears from the troubled parents of disabled or ill children who would like them to become b’nai mitzvah. “There are a lot of places that don’t know how to make that happen. They can.”
What it takes is cooperation from the synagogue and willingness to accommodate the child’s ability.
At Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek, three children with disabilities have prepared for their b’nai mitzvah, including Bellet’s developmentally disabled daughter Ariel, now 14.
Ariel sang the haftarah blessings, read her Torah portion in English and alternated reading with Rabbi Raphael Asher: He read a line, she read a simple translation.
In her speech, she thanked her eldest brother for making her tallit, and thanked her other brother for being so handsome.
“There’s still this little girl in there,” Bellet said. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”
But beyond B’nai Tikvah, Bellet charges that the broader Jewish community does not address the needs — or the devotion — of the developmentally disabled.
“And for many of them, Judaism is the core of their being,” she said. “Nowhere in the West is there anything in place for them. Retardation has not been honored or respected in the Jewish community.”
The Board of Rabbis resolution recommends working with such community agencies as the JFCS Disabilities Project to develop workable solutions.
“To tell you the truth, I was shocked that these kinds of services were not in place here,” said Rachel Biale, parenting and youth services coordinator for the JFCS of the East Bay. Biale worked in a day treatment program for developmentally disabled adults in New York before coming to JFCS.
Biale and others outlined ideas for drawing the disabled into Jewish life, including:
*A Jewish group home for disabled adults. Hatikvah has established such a home on the Peninsula, and a group of East Bay parents of children with disabilities has been researching the possibility of a group home for those children.
*Partnerships. Bellet advocates teaming youth with adults, including those with and without disabilities.
*Educational efforts, including disability awareness workshops.
While some synagogues and agencies have made adaptations to accommodate those with disabilities, “unclear on the concept” seems to be the barrier that keeps many synagogues and agencies from realizing they need to make changes, according to Kovalsky.
“I’ve called places where there are 20 steps into the building, and had people say to me, ‘Oh, but nobody with a handicap ever comes here.’ And I say, ‘Why do you think that might be?’ You can almost see the light bulb go off.”