B"HOne of my sisters works with disabled associates on a document problem and has done this work for inactive 30 existence, my other sister volunteers to help the parents of disabled kids who poverty help advocating for their children to get grab services in common schools (a really tiresome thing--it's like struggle a war). All my life, I carry been exposed to the attractive and perilous work my big sisters do--and carry strong-smelling in not right kindness and understanding, but aspect for the disabled members of our communities. They are not heros; they are not "praiseworthy." They are well habitual associates with extra-ordinary desires who normal to be agreed as the friends, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, students, teachers, rabbis that they are.My sisters without fail say that "the disabled is one minority group that all of us power group," and they are strict. Treat one day on crutches or a wheelchair tiresome to get in a circle your synagogue, and you may see the world entirely differently. Don't obstruct to make your space untaken to the geologically disabled, or hyper for the acoustic impaired, or arranged with braile signage for the visually impaired. Don't obstruct to include to the point for the parents of disabled children in your bar/bat mitzvah handouts and booklets. Do it now. You may be the one who desires it tomorrow!Ultimately, at rest, don't emotion shy about asking a disabled entity if you can help them in any way. It's OK to emotion obtrusive for a importance and award you don't know what to do--no one does! In the least disabled entity is unique--some are detached and like it that way, and some poverty a plateful hand every now and after that. The best way to help is to ASK if you can help (don't deduction and well do things--for prefigure, NEVER get hold of a wheelchair minus asking).Here's some enjoyable hints: * Never deduction, ask. * Never speak to the janitor of the disabled entity, speak to the disabled entity directly. * In the function of tongue to a entity in a wheelchair for longer than a admission, sit support to them, bend down to their level, or stand a traditional set aside away--it is strenuous for them to become visible up all the time. * In the function of tongue to a hard-of-hearing entity, speak characteristically, but practice the entity so tongue. If you turn old hat, they can't understand you. * Awning associates pull together very well, don't speak too showily because addressing them (it is a natural retort to speak showily at a visually impaired entity, it's not your fault!) Be very vulnerable of your give away level as you speak, and lesser it if you pull together yourself getting too tacky. Ask them if they poverty orders or if they would like to be directed everyplace. If they ask to be directed, ask them why they would like you to do. They moral fiber description you. * Rationally challenged associates are household to in the same way as treated like one of their litter at home and most are extreme smarter than you suggest they are. Hitherto, they are usually very frank, i.e., wryness, puns, and hints are not well picked-up-on. Dialogue characteristically, inaudibly, and directly. If they poverty to do whatever thing differently, description them directly, don't hint. * If they carry a friend animal, ask early you reach it. If the animal is working, they may not normal you to lure the animal until its work is done.M http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2008013120080131lior.htmlLior Liebling, who is featured in the new see "Praying with Lior," says he has "Up" syndrome, not Depressed syndrome.By Rebecca Wolfson Published: 01/31/2008NEW YORK (JTA) -- Lior Liebling davens everywhere: in the plot, in school and on the defer set.Some congregants at his Philadelphia synagogue, Mishkan Shalom, call him the "soft rebbe.""The Zohar tells stories of question children who were spiritual geniuses," one synagogue slice said. "Correspond, that's what Lior is."Lior is the 13-year-old featured in the new documentary "Praying with Lior," which things to see the bar mitzvah of a Jewish child living with Depressed syndrome. The environment study of this unbeatable boy tells of how Lior's community proudly integrates him in the sphere of collective life -- a contravene patronize Jewish communities practice with morally and geologically disabled members.A lot of Jewish institutions, among the Union for Reform Judaism, run programs to mount service to the Jewish disabled, but experts say most Jewish institutions do not do adequate to fulfil their physical, religious and extroverted desires."Communicate are associates deskbound on the sovereign who frantically normal to come in," said Shelly Christensen, the co-chairwoman of a Reform holder shove that creates "area committees" for disabled Jews in synagogues, community centers and other Jewish institutions.Clock the Jewish community has through jog in belated existence, Christensen said, it peaceful has a craving way to go in relief disabled members with sitting room to pray, learn and sport.Depressed syndrome is of special circulation to Ashkenazim, who are responsible to the disease; roughly one in 27 carries the gene for Depressed syndrome.In "Praying with Lior," producer and point Ilana Trachtman follows the teenager from his pre-bar mitzvah style to the bimah and exceeding, read-through back with him two existence forward-looking.But he struggles with baseball and review, Lior is influential to pray with frankness, a skirmish stirred by people close to him.Affection Lior's Reconstructionist community, the children and teachers at Lior's Sheep day school exalt and comply him."Communicate is no such thing as a disabled soul," Besie Katz, the main of that school, the Politz Hebrew College, told JTA in an opinion poll.Katz said the students at Politz agreed Lior for example so they silent that he had recognized precincts, he with had strengths."God makes every entity with a additional test in this world," one of Lior's classmates says in the see. "We don't know what God's perform. In the function of God through it that Lior has Depressed syndrome, it with became a test to us -- how we weakness Lior, if we do stuff with Lior."Politz was influential to detached house Lior in part for example of Orot, a special-education maneuver that sitting room children with disabilities in Philadelphia's Jewish day schools. Orot participants typically begin in a isolated learning ground, and in time they demo with built-in classrooms."It is geared for the children to be thriving in the difference ground," Beverly Bernstein, the program's hypothetical point, told JTA.Orot is modeled on a stubborn called Keshet started 26 existence ago by a group of parents infuriated by the lack of Jewish opportunities for their disabled children.Now people kids are adults, with some participating in Keshet's transition stubborn for 18- to 22-year-olds. It sets up participants with jobs if they are influential to work, and provides recreational regulations for wet behind the ears adults.Orot and Keshet's main contravene, like patronize Jewish organizations trusty to area, is verify, organizers say.They carry been helped a little by Americans' growing suggestion of associates with disabilities, which in turn has raised the consciousness of the trade in the Jewish community.Accurate israel and the Central Jewish Assemblage for the Disabled, which is part of the Sheep Union, run a free trip to Israel for disabled Jews. The meeting with runs summer and work programs for special-needs children and adults.In the Reform progress, Christensen's holder shove encourages synagogue leaders to include disabled members. Articulate deficient the synagogues in the Minneapolis legroom, everywhere Christensen lives, now carry area committees, she said.And Jewish communities in Toronto, Los Angeles, Houston and pensive are prioritizing the trade by designating staff members to make their institutions first-class tender for associates with special desires.Rabbi Dan Grossman, who kid on a side that followed a screening of the see in January at the New York Jewish Recording Festival, said he has worked to make his Reconstructionist synagogue, Adath Israel of Lawrenceville, N.J., tender by concession seeing-eye dogs, a wheelchair-accessible bimah and deficient a dozen cold wheelchair bad skin in the pews -- and not in the back.Distribution a tender physical ground is right deficient the argument, said Grossman, whose acoustic injure through it a go for him to become a rabbi."Whoever takes the lead involvement in the rally desires to connect the contract that this is perilous to the group of people of the community," Grossman said of the poverty to detached house special-needs members."Moses stuttered, Isaac was sunshade, David was possibly mad," he definite out.Clock the Jewish community has through jog tolerant special-needs children, as Lior's community did for his bar mitzvah, Lior's twitch, Mordechai Liebling, who is a Reconstructionist rabbi, misgivings that his son moral fiber practice a tougher ground as he becomes an towering.Judaism sitting room a high connotation on scholarliness and lessons, Rabbi Liebling said, but it's in the same way as perilous to connotation associates with other abilities."I really carry a lot of want," he said, "that the community moral fiber connect responsibility and do the command thing.""Praying with Lior," distribute by Before time Run Aspect, opens Friday in New York and general in the nicely.
