Michelle Friedman, vice chair of the board of Keshet and on Keshet’s board of governance and development committees As a woman who grew up in a strongly identified observant family, attended Jewish day school and camp, and had a bubby who devoted herself to Jewish organizations, the obligation of tikkun olam, chesed and serving the community were [click to continue...]
Matan Koch
As you have no doubt read over the past several Shabbat Smile emails, RespectAbility has been conducting a seven-part Disability Access and Inclusion Training Series for Jewish Organizations. While we plan on conducting more trainings in the future, for now we are happy to share with you that all seven trainings are live on our [click to continue...]
Los Angeles, July 28 – This week, America has been celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation ever passed for people with disabilities. In celebration, the disability advocacy nonprofit RespectAbility, with a significant operation in Los Angeles, is hosting #ADA30 Summit 2020. Its crowning [click to continue...]
This week, almost 400 people registered for the exciting session, “How to Ensure Accessible Events: Both Live and Virtual Across All Platforms.” By now, you’re probably aware of our Disability Access and Inclusion Training Series for Jewish Organizations and Activists offered by a coalition of over 45 Jewish organizations. If not, this week is the [click to continue...]
More than 200 people registered for the exciting session “Disability Access and Inclusion Training Series for Jewish Organizations and Activists” offered by a coalition of over 40 Jewish organizations. “How to Advance Disability Inclusion in Jewish Education” debunked the long-held belief that the Jewish world did not have educational models for students with disabilities. More [click to continue...]
More than 100 people joined the first session of the new “Disability Access and Inclusion Training Series for Jewish Organizations and Activists” offered by a coalition of over 40 Jewish organizations. The session “Inclusion as a Jewish Value” laid the groundwork for the other six sessions, not only demonstrating clearly that inclusion is present even [click to continue...]
I hope that you are staying safe and healthy. Before I begin our weekly exploration of Jewish disability inclusion, I must begin the Shabbat Smile by noting that this is a gut-wrenching time in our nation. We are all dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and massive job loss challenges. Now the uprisings taking place across [click to continue...]
Today as we observe Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we think of the 6 million Jews and 5 million others, including people with disabilities, who were targeted for extermination in Nazi Germany. It is easy to delude ourselves into thinking that all of the perpetrators of this horrific genocide were simply uniquely evil, and that [click to continue...]
With Passover right around the corner, we would normally be planning on gathering around the table for a Seder with our loved ones. We read from our Haggadah, celebrate, and give thanks for the liberation of our people from oppression. This gratitude might feel difficult, however, with the current COVID-19 plague looming overhead. Instead of [click to continue...]
I am a proud Jew. I am also a 38-year-old quadriplegic with asthma. Millions of Americans – myself included – are at high risk from the virus and from medical rationing. Sadly, the de facto devaluation of disabled lives in healthcare is nothing new, but there is a current push to make it policy. It [click to continue...]