February
is Jewish Disability Awareness Month, and all month, we’ll be featuring blog posts
about disability inclusion. Read our posts here and visit our Jewish Disability Awareness Month page.
Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, the RAC’s senior adviser on disability issues, wrote an op-ed published this week in The Forward in honor of Jewish Disability Awareness Month. In “No Jew Should Be Left Behind,” she writes,
As recently as May 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 41.2 million Americans have some sort of a disability — that’s some 15% of the population. While there are no firm statistics on the percentage of Jews with disabilities, there’s no reason to believe that the proportion is very different for our community. Within our midst exist Jews who are hearing- and vision-impaired, Jews with intellectual disabilities, Jews with cognitive or psychological disabilities — Jews who need more than ramps and designated parking spaces to meet their needs.
This piece, published during the second annual Jewish Disability Awareness Month, highlights the importance – indeed, the necessity – of recognizing that Jews with disabilities are often woefully underserved by their congregations.
These Jews are often not present within our synagogues
because they perceive they are not wanted there. How many of our
synagogues have sign-language interpreters or Braille prayer books? How
many offer service programs or congregational bulletins in large print?
Only a select few synagogues provide religious school classes designed
for children with special needs; even fewer have such classes for
adults. Fewer still offer any programs, trips or religious services at
all designed to include people with all types of disabilities.
Rabbi Landsberg’s own experience with disability (she suffered a
Traumatic Brain Injury after a near-fatal car crash in 1999) have
driven her work on disability issues, particularly within the Jewish
community. In 2007, she worked with the the Jewish Federations of
America (then called United Jewish Communities) to form the Jewish
Disability Network and later, in 2009, the Interfaith Disability
Advocacy Coalition, both of which bring together faith organizations to
address issues like inclusion, awareness and legislation. In 2008, the
RAC and the Jewish Disability Network, led by Rabbi Landsberg, pressed for passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Amendments Act, which marked vital progress toward fulfilling the promise of the original ADA
and ensuring equality throughout the U.S. for individuals with
disabilities.
In last week’s Washington Jewish Week piece “Access to the Heart,”
Lynne says, “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 noninclusive programming and
religious education. We shut Jews out by maintaining attitudes of
discomfort and disdain.”
Visit the RAC’s Jewish Disability Awareness Month resource page to learn how your synagogue can take steps toward inclusivity, this month and all year long.