Have you ever been at a staff meeting to plan an event, class, service, or project, and one voice spoke clearly at just the right moment: “Have we thought about how this will affect [insert name of particular individual or group you are thinking about]?” Perhaps you have been that voice. In seeking to include [click to continue...]
The profile of bar and bat mitzvah recently got a boost thanks to Adam Sandler’s 2023 movie You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. While the movie takes a playful look at how plans for a girl’s bat mitzvah unravel over a popular boy, the institution of bar and bat mitzvah has been [click to continue...]
The summer I was eight, I was sent to a sleep-away camp for the month of July. The girls slept in a big dormitory, and my bed was in the center aisle. I have only one other memory about the camp—just one incident that has stayed with me all these years: The time my bed [click to continue...]
When I think of the meaning of “a community of belonging,” it is the community that Keshet has created, particularly at camp. Each summer I sit in the picnic grove at camp, and I look out at our camp community with hundreds of disabled and non-disabled campers and staff and get overwhelmed with emotions. The [click to continue...]
Transcript Chag sameach! Happy Passover! My name is Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, and I’m going to speak for a few minutes about celebrating Passover in an accessible and inclusive manner. Passover is Zman Cheruteinu – time of our freedom. It is a central holiday in the Jewish tradition, a time where we come together with families [click to continue...]
I always had a goal of working in the disability space but was never quite sure how I was going to achieve it. One night, in December of 2014, I was in my bed contemplating all the things that I desired to do to make an impact in the world around disability. I wanted to [click to continue...]
P&G Global Ambassador, Employees with Disabilities and Medical Conditions: Raymond Lynch’s Journey Advances the Disability Community Raymond Lynch has always been an overachiever. Raised on a farm in Ireland, he worked hard and long hours in his youth. In college that same work ethic helped him to hold down multiple jobs while working towards a [click to continue...]
by Bill Gaventa, PFTW Project Consultant, and Erik Carter, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center UCEDD How do most of us get our jobs, at least somewhere along our work lives? It is often through personal relationships and networking that we find out about openings. Or, in other words, social capital is often the pathway to work. Congregations are [click to continue...]
1) Before you brainstorm solutions, STOP & ask a load of questions! Remember, behavior is always communication. It is a way for kids, teens, and even adults to communicate an unmet need. For those with disabilities that impair their ability to communicate, this may be even more prevalent. Sometimes it’s unconscious and sometimes it’s conscious [click to continue...]
As we enter the end of summer (I know–it’s here!), those of us who work in education are turning our attention towards our classroom communities. How do we create inclusive Jewish education communities? At Jewish Learning Venture, our Whole Community Inclusion initiative approaches inclusion holistically, engaging all stakeholders including the educators, the families, clergy and [click to continue...]
