For years, JCHAI’s award-winning Transitions program has provided young adults with developmental disabilities the opportunity to develop social networks while learning skills to transition to living and working in the community. Our in-person classes and outings brought people together to practice life-skills while socializing with friends. The pandemic and current stay-at-home orders have made it [click to continue...]
Shabbat Smile
As COVID-19 continues to claim the lives of multitudes around the globe, we have responded with serious introspection and copious goodwill, transforming into the very best versions of ourselves – more grateful, helpful, compassionate and empathetic than ever before. Surprisingly, we have also effectively proven that we possess the skills, resources and creativity to remove [click to continue...]
We all see the news – the deaths, the job losses, the pain. It’s all very hard on our families, communities and even our souls. But what is even more important is the tremendous effort to save lives. Some of this, like the heroic work of first responders, makes the news. But much of the [click to continue...]
Founded in 1948, Israel’s accessibility for people with disabilities was not a top priority. I recall several almost comical incidents from nearly 20 years ago when helping people with disabilities navigate Israel. On one group trip, while pushing 20-something Rivka in a wheelchair in northern Israel, the sidewalk abruptly ended. We carried her in the [click to continue...]
During the 49-day `Counting of the Omer,’ we traditionally retrace our ancestors’ seven-week spiritual journey from Exodus to Sinai each evening. Typically together, we count the days until the 50th day, Shavuot, when we commemorate and joyfully celebrate the Giving of the Torah at Sinai. This year, however, in a manner unprecedented in a century, we are additionally ‘counting days’ in a most precarious, daunting, and [click to continue...]
Traditionally, during the Passover seder, we ask four questions, starting with the well-known refrain “mah nishtanah ha’layla ha’zeh mi’kol ha’leylot: why is this night different from all other nights?” This year, there are far more than the traditional four answers to this query. We are, right now, living in a time of challenge and hardship, a new “mitzraym” or narrow place for all of [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...]
Erdenheim, Pa., Mar. 27 – As I sit in my childhood home outside of Philadelphia in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, now almost two weeks after having been uprooted from my “new” life I was starting in DC, it seems only natural that my mind should wander to happier, “easier” times – many 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...]
This week has been a challenging and uncertain one for our world. As we are unmoored by the health and economic crisis as well as temporary closures of the mainstays of our lives, the rhythms of our days feel off, and we don’t know when normalcy will return. This can be especially concerning to those [click to continue...]