Late one Sunday night last October, my phone rang. I panicked because late night calls never bring good news.

“Who is calling so late?” I grumbled.

One glance at the screen and I had my answer. It was actually good news.

“Hi, Judy,” I said. “I’m so glad you called!”

A month earlier I texted Judy Heumann with an invitation to be the guest speaker on a webinar RespectAbility was doing for Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month. I added that we wanted to feature her two recent books, “Being Heumann” and “Rolling Warrior” for the JDAIM Reads! Selections.

She texted immediately. “Of course, I am interested and thank you very much!” [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, March 9 – On the evening of February 27, Creed lll had its world premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. Without getting into too many details on the movie (because nobody likes spoilers!), if you haven’t seen the movie, what are you waiting for?

Creed III is one of the best films that I have seen in a while in the theater, and I am not the only one to feel this way – Creed III made box office history last weekend as the highest grossing sports film opening weekend in history. The fight scenes were incredible and, combined with its special effects (there is an especially powerful moment during the final climactic fight that is reminiscent of scenes from Anime films), made for a mind-blowing moviegoing experience. The film was very well written by co-writers Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin, and produced by Ryan Coogler (director of Black Panther & Wakanda Forever). Moreover, Creed III happens to be Michael B Jordan’s directing debut. All the credit goes to him, his team, and the amazing cast that include Jonathan Majors, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Florian Munteanu, and Phylicia Rashad. Most importantly, he elevated Black Deaf representation to another level with the amazingly talented Mila Davis-Kent, who plays Amara Creed, the daughter of Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan).

What hit me hard watching Creed III was the opening scene with Amara. When she first appears early in the film, the first thing you see is beautiful Black Deaf representation on a gigantic screen. How often do you get to see that on the big screen in the theater? It is such a huge deal in the Deaf community, especially within the Black Deaf community, to finally have someone on the screen that they can relate to and have a role model that youth can look up to. It was amazing how Michael B Jordan depicted ASL (American Sign Language) authentically and seamlessly on the screen demonstrating, in various ways, unique cultural nuances of the Black Deaf community in South Los Angeles. [continue reading…]

This past Saturday, Judy Heumann, a legendary changemaker and advocate for disability rights, passed away after a brief time in the hospital. Judy’s website shared the news of her passing and highlights of her life’s work: “Judy was at the forefront of major disability rights demonstrations, helped spearhead the passage of disability rights legislation, founded national and international disability advocacy organizations, held senior federal government positions, co-authored her memoir, Being Heumann, and its Young Adult version, Rolling Warrior, and was featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary film, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.”

Judy was fighting for disability inclusion right until the end. Just a few weeks ago, she did a webinar with RespectAbility to kick off Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month. Most of our team had the chance to meet and learn from Judy over the years, and all of us have benefitted greatly from her work. Below, we’re sharing a few notes from our team about what Judy meant to us as an advocate, friend, partner, and colleague. We’re also sharing information on the memorial service happening this Wednesday. Several members of our team will be in attendance at the memorial. We strongly encourage those who cannot make it in person to watch the livestream.

We mourn Judy’s passing, and keep her family, friends, and the rest of the disability community in our thoughts. We won’t stop until the world she envisioned becomes a reality. May her memory be a blessing. [continue reading…]

Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month for 2023 is almost over. In March, the Faith Inclusion and Belonging team will evaluate RespectAbility’s first JDAIM since I joined the team. We will be reaching out to many of our national and community colleagues to find out what they promoted during JDAIM and how our Faith Inclusion and Belonging team can support their work going forward.

We are also committed to exploring collaborations in the multi-faith space and learning from others who are doing similar awareness programming. At the same time, our team will be learning from disability organizations that have spirituality and religious participation as part of their work.

Yesterday and today, I was glued to the view outside my office window, watching Mother Nature deliver a meteorological gut punch in the form of two feet of snow. I thought about the times JDAIM events had to be cancelled or drew only a handful of people thanks to weather in some parts of North America. Inclement weather never even occurred to me and my colleagues from the Jewish Special Education Consortium when we chose February for JDAIM back in 2009. [continue reading…]

This year I was fortunate to bear witness to the transformative work done during Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM). One of my favorite events during JDAIM was at Temple Emanuel in Boston. I hit the road from my apartment in New Haven, Connecticut around 6 a.m. to make it for our first event at 8:30 a.m. As I entered the synagogue, I was struck by the accessible infrastructure present throughout the building, including ramps both outside and inside the building, accessible bathrooms, and accessible parking.

These may seem like small accessibility measures. However, since religious organizations are not covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act, these measures are more than I have seen in many houses of worship. With that context in mind, I was surprised and delighted to find that their accessibility commitments went further. When I entered the small-group meeting rooms and the sanctuary, there was a large screen with live captioning, microphones to ensure presenters could be heard, and a livestream recording each part of the event so those who were unable to attend in person still had access.
[continue reading…]

Salt Lake City, Feb 23 – Aleeya, written and directed by RespectAbility Lab Alum Nina Mahesh (she/her), follows a trans woman in small-town India as she tries to buy a sewing machine for her boyfriend. This short film is both a simple love story and an intricate depiction of how trans women are treated in India. Over and over again, Aleeya, played impeccably by Nithu Rs, is either objectified or completely ignored by the people around her. Even the man she is trying to buy the sewing machine from won’t look up from his newspaper to engage.

In a conversation with Mahesh around the film, she remembered back to her yearly trips to India as a child where she would be ushered away from trans women coming up looking for change. Mahesh didn’t understand why these women were treated so poorly both in this one area as well as globally. As she got older and learned more about the community of these women, she wanted to see more positive representation. More specifically, as a narrative filmmaker, Mahesh said, “I didn’t see a lot of other things than documentaries [about these women]” and decided to make a narrative piece about them. [continue reading…]

Supreme Models is an amazing series that pays tribute to the trailblazing Black models who changed the fashion industry forever. Through heartfelt interviews that reintroduce iconic models like Donyale Luna and Pat Cleveland, viewers get a glimpse into what it took for them to break through the oppressive culture of racism and colorism in the 1960s.

Based on the book by Marsellas Reynolds, Supreme Models is a YouTube Originals docuseries from Vogue and The Machine that spills the tea on the fashion industry, from the Battle of Versailles to the unspoken “Blackout” that attempted to erase black models from the runway. Through a unique combination of archival footage and contemporary interviews, Supreme Models takes viewers on a journey through history as we explore how African American women revolutionized these industries.

RespectAbility Lab Alumna Nasreen Alkhateeb was the Director of Photography for the series, and she shared what it was like on set in real-time with these iconic women in history. “It felt so empowering to learn about my black history in a way that I had not before, and for it to be told by the people who actually experienced it.” Hearing the models talk firsthand about the embedded racism in the industry, Alkhateeb says the series sets up the foundation on which history was built and sheds light on how white supremacy worked in the fashion and entertainment industry. “You can’t build a future without knowing your history.” [continue reading…]

Erika Ellis is the multifaceted creative behind the short film Quick Trip. It is clear that Ellis has fun with her craft as she uses a unique sense of humor in her work. Ellis’s characters feel colorful and grounded in reality. These are people you would run into in day-to-day life, which is part of the appeal of her work.

In Quick Trip, Ellis takes on different roles as a writer and director of a three-minute thriller that ends in a sharp plot twist. A woman finds herself in danger after returning home from a quick trip to the pharmacy. We follow the main character’s drive to her home, and the slow pace is great at building suspense and curiosity. It’s also interesting to see such a scary threat in a mundane location, like a parking lot. It reminds us that this situation can happen to anyone.

Quick Trip was the product of a veteran-produced films contest at Amazon Prime. An independent producer, Ellis is passionate about advocating for artistic opportunities for other veterans. This initiative not only gives veterans a chance to make work but also gives us all the opportunity to see a new perspective within the filmmaking industry.

Ellis boasts a life full of different experiences. A veteran, after a long military career in aviation, Ellis worked in finance and in NYC’s bustling fashion scene. She is currently working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles and writes features as well as TV pilots. After graduating from RespectAbility’s Entertainment Lab, Ellis has shown a commitment to authentic representation in her work and one can catch a glimpse of her commitment to original stories within this film.

Watch Quick Trip at Amazon Prime.

Hard pavement blocks and dark satin silhouettes of city streets: Writer-Director Nikki Bailey’s Short, The Crossroad, starts somewhere in reality and ends exactly when any remnants of it cease to exist. For Bailey’s magical realism short, the story surrounds a mother who makes a bargain with a Satanic figure, “The Tall Man,” to ensure the survival of her unborn child. Bailey’s protagonist must promise her own soul to “The Tall Man” or face the eminent death of her baby.

The film feels like you’re being spooned by death. Bailey seems to ask the audience to cozy up to the inevitable and sit with her characters’ despair throughout much of the story. The pinnacle of that despair is when Bailey’s protagonist dies – after her daughter, the one saved by the original bargain, denies a second deal with “The Tall Man.” The cost of the deal, for the daughter, seemed too great of a burden. After all, the soul of her mother was ascertained from that kind of deal, why would the daughter engage with it again?

Though there are limits to what Bailey can show in a fourteen-minute film, the possibilities of this imaginative story leave the audience wanting more. The most ordinary of streets, for Bailey, can be the genesis for something unsettling and completely magical.

Watch The Crossroad on YouTube.