Faith and Spirituality

Kick-starting the month of February and the recognition of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAAIM), President Reuven “Ruvi” Rivlin of Israel met with a group of young men and women from the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) volunteer corps. The honored guests met with the president for demonstrating their unwavering willpower and determination to proudly serve their country despite their disabilities.

Among the 20 soldiers present at the reception was Liron Natan of Jerusalem, who serves at the Palmachim Air Force Base as part of Special in Uniform, the IDF’s world-acclaimed inclusion program. During the meeting, President Rivlin invited Liron to share her heartwarming story. [continue reading…]

Erev-JDAD participants

Washington, D.C., Feb. 7 – More than 80 Jewish disability advocates joined together for the inaugural Erev JDAD – the eve before Jewish Disability Advocacy Day – to discuss a variety of important topics regarding disability inclusion. Having surveyed attendees’ interests beforehand, hot topics covered twice-over were civic engagement and advocacy, leadership development, synagogue inclusion, and employment. Other topic discussions included self-advocacy, housing, fundraising, early childhood education, Jewish camping, and fighting stigmas.

While JDAD – a day of civic education and lobbying organized by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism – has been in existence for 10 years, this is the first formal gathering bringing some of the advocates that come in from across the country together to collaborate. Conceived by RespectAbility, the idea of Erev JDAD was to enable JDAD attendees from around the country to be able to have more time to network with each other – sharing their community’s best practices and planting the seeds for new ones. [continue reading…]

An evening of brainstorming & networking for leading voices in Jewish disability inclusion, presented by JFNA, RAC, RespectAbility and Edlavitch DCJCC.

Jewish Disability Advocacy Day (JDAD) is a tremendous gathering of people who share a commitment to Jewish inclusion.  [continue reading…]

Shabbat Shalom,

This Shabbat begins the month of February, better known to the Jewish disability world as JDAIM, Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month (the “A” now stands for two words). It is a month full of activity in the Jewish world. As this Shabbat comes to a close, I will fly from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., both to attend Jewish Federation of North America’s Jewish Disability Advocacy Day (JDAD) and to co-host Erev-JDAD, a gathering the eve before, of nearly 80 JDAD attendees, to brainstorm around pressing issues facing the Jewish disability community, and to invigorate collaboration. I will report back on that in next week’s Shabbat Smile, but for this week I wanted to make a pitch to you about the importance of making sure that this work is a year-round endeavor. [continue reading…]

It’s a great time for those of us who care about people with disabilities. Our voter guide is out and you can see it and much more at www.VoteAbility.com. I also just heard from my friend and disability hero, Howard Blas who is Director-National Ramah Tikvah Network, about some very exciting projects. The first is that the Ramah team is continuing to grow their vocational training for people with disabilities. Secondly, his project on identifying creative job sites for people with disabilities continues. You can check out many success stories here: https://howardblas.com/disabilities/job-sites/

Soon Howard is off to Tanzania to climb Kiliminjaro with a fabulous Israeli disability organization, Access Israel. Check out the press release below. WOW, right? They are going to have a blast.
[continue reading…]

I was but one of 25,000 Jews and allies who attended last Sunday’s Solidarity Rally in NYC, supporting NYC’s Jewish community during these dark days of “Jew Hating” (the recommended substitute for “anti-semitism”). Together, we marched / rolled from Foley Square across the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza Park. [continue reading…]

Harel Chait

My name is Harel Chait, and I am a person with blindness and a kidney transplant who lives in Israel. I work as a consultant, focused on web accessibility, for people with disabilities. Among my clients are corporations, government offices, and health services. I have been doing this work for about nine years, and participated on the Israeli standard team (SI 5568), addressing that issue. Additionally, I am a PhD candidate in Business Administration and Information Systems at Bar Ilan University. My academic work focuses on web accessibility and I have presented my work at a few international academic conferences. [continue reading…]

My name is Matan Koch and I am RespectAbility’s Director of Jewish Leadership. Over the next few weeks you will notice that the Shabbat Smile continues its focus on the very best practices and exemplars of Jewish inclusion. The primary goal is to bring a new substance to your Shabbats. Both the weekly messages and our soon-to-be-redesigned archive will become a go-to resource as you work to advance inclusion in your own communities. Don’t worry – we will still bring you key announcements that you need to know, along with the very best wisdom from our Jewish inclusion professionals and our expert allies at other organizations, but I see potential for something even more unique.

Last week I was privileged to attend the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial conference, proudly proclaimed to be the largest gathering of Jews in North America. As is often the case, I was invited to speak on a panel with brilliant colleagues, in this case Pamela Rae Schuller and Rabbi Rebecca Dubowe, in a session on synagogue inclusion.

[continue reading…]

As we gear up for a light-filled holiday of menorahs with dripping candles, dreidels spinning in our surroundings, songs sung in our synagogues and homes and gifts getting wrapped for our loved ones, I want us to stop and think about another key aspect: food that we will prepare and/or share with family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors.

Our traditional “go-to’s” for this holiday tend to be: latkes dolloped with applesauce and/or sour cream; chocolate gelt and babkas; and, more common in Israel, suvganiot (jelly-filled donuts).

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once said, “you are what you eat.” Yet how much do we think about our fellow Jews among us who are unable to eat what ‘we’ eat?  While the dietary restrictions of kashrut are culturally ‘accepted’, other dietary restrictions – in place to prevent painful or potentially life-threatening physical responses – are far less accepted. [continue reading…]