“The Jack and Shirley Silver Center for Special Needs builds and nurtures an inclusive and accepting community where individuals with disabilities and their families have opportunities to make meaningful connections to each other and their communities. We serve as a catalyst and leader for transforming the ways in which the community at large understands and [click to continue...]
Shlomo Meyers was born in Manhasset, New York on December 6, 1985 with Down Syndrome. He is the middle child in a family of seven children. Meyers currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Danielle. He has been working at Maimonides Academy in Los Angeles since 2014. Meyers describes himself as a kind, respectful [click to continue...]
Saturday night began the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av. This is a fast day, and traditionally requires a great deal of mourning. When determining our individual observance, however, we must remember core Jewish values. Judaism emphasizes the wellbeing of individuals and their safety. One should not put themselves in a position of harm because they [click to continue...]
“The Jewish Los Angeles Special Needs Trust (JLA Trust) provides professional trustee services to people with physical, mental, cognitive, and developmental disabilities with affordable pooled special needs trusts so beneficiaries of legal settlements and inheritances do not lose their essential government benefits. Our person-centered services support people surviving on these benefits (often SSI and/or Medi-Cal), [click to continue...]
Two weeks ago, I had the absolute joy and privilege to attend a webinar entitled “How Nonprofits Work.” It was the second of seven free, phenomenal webinars being put together by Joshua Steinberg. This “Leaders of the Future” series, which concludes on July 20, is providing incredible content to introduce aspiring Jewish lay leaders with [click to continue...]
Alex Howard is a compassionate, funny guy, to whom it is incredibly easy to talk. Alex has MEPAN Syndrome – one of only 18 people in the world with the condition – and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. MEPAN Syndrome is a rare genetic neurological disorder that usually presents in early childhood, but Alex was not diagnosed until [click to continue...]
Los Angeles, July 2 – Benjamin Rosloff, a talented filmmaker on the Autism spectrum who served as a Jewish Inclusion Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program, has created an unprecedented short documentary film that is a compilation of his one-on-one interviews with Jews with disabilities. The short film features deep insights and fabulous emotions [click to continue...]
“The Women’s Rabbinic Network (WRN) is a constituent group of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). It was created in 1975 by a group of female rabbinic students to provide the support and advocacy needed in the early years of women in the Reform rabbinate. Since then, the organization has grown to include over [click to continue...]
“At Gateways, we believe that every Jewish child deserves access to Jewish education and community. Gateways provides high quality special education services, expertise and support to enable students with diverse learning needs to participate meaningfully in Jewish life and learning. Now in our second decade, we serve individuals, families, educators, day and congregational schools, preschools, [click to continue...]
Emily Borses is a 21-year-old aspiring filmmaker based in Los Angeles who is also part of RespectAbility’s Speaking and Training Bureau. Emily’s family is very artsy, especially her dad. When she was growing up, he introduced her to 60’s-era punk rock music like Led Zeppelin, Heart, ZZ Top, and The Foo Fighters. She also developed an [click to continue...]
