February was Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM), a month that has been dedicated to raising awareness about disabilities in the Jewish community. CESJDS recently had a Kabbalat Shabbat that focused on raising awareness with a presentation from a group of students that took a trip to Gallaudet University for the deaf on Feb. 4.

Since JDAIM’s establishment in 2009 by the Jewish Special Education International Consortium, events and programs have been planned during the month of February to raise awareness about disabilities in the Jewish community.

In light of JDAIM, nine high school students, led by Director of Jewish Life Stephanie Hoffman, took a trip to Gallaudet and the signing Starbucks in Washington, D.C. Students learned about the history of deaf education and accessibility in the United States. 

“Something that came out of the conversation [with the students who went on the trip the other day], the follow-up conversation for the students that went on the field trip, was heightened awareness, [and] that while we focus so much on the disability that exists, it’s actually just one thing, one inability,” Hoffman said. “They are able to, they have the ability to do anything else and everything else that we do. In my mind, that was a really striking thought.”                                             

Hoffman emphasized the importance of overcoming one’s differences and focusing on the qualities and traits that everyone shares. She said that in order to truly interact and share spaces, communities must look past the abilities or inabilities of others and focus on the things which have in common.

Hoffman also noted the culture of the deaf community that she had not noticed until she went to Gallaudet.

“Something that I learned from the [Signing] Starbucks … [was] in some ways, walking into that space, we were the ones with the disability,” Hoffman said. “We had to do what that space required of us.”

Freshman and active member of the Mental Health Awareness Club Emma Landy stressed the importance of talking about mental health as a part of JDAIM.

“It’s really important to have conversations about things that not only affect us but people around us. I think that it’s really important that people are educated on mental health, especially this month, Jewish Disability Awareness Month,” Landy said.

During February, disabilities including mental health issues, are in the spotlight, however, Landy feels that mental health is often overlooked when talking about disabilities.

In order to raise awareness and acceptance of Jews with disabilities, events have recently taken place in the local community. Two of these events were a sensory-friendly Shabbat at the Washington Hebrew Congregation on March 1 and an inclusion forum at the Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, Va. on March 3.

Even predominately Jewish disabilities and diseases are recognized during JDAIM, one such being Tay-Sachs. Tay-Sachs is prominent in the Ashkenazi Jewish community, where children with the disease often do not live past three or four years old.

Diseases such as Tay-Sachs can become more common in certain Jewish communities because “people are selecting their marriage partners from a pool that’s fairly small, compared to the entire world,” science department chair Kimberly Agzigian said. “If someone [has] a fairly rare disease—and Tay-Sachs is fairly rare—but you’re limited to this small population, and it’s within a family … all of a sudden you might have two people with this really rare disease that should not have met under normal circumstances.”

This story was featured in the Volume 36, Issue 5 print edition of The Lion’s Tale, published on March 15, 2019.