After the experience, participants asked a single question: “When can we come back and do this again?”

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Volunteers on a disability inclusion trip sponsored by Birthright Israel, September 2024. Photo by Howard Blas.

(Oct. 8, 2024 / JNS) Eight days in Israel leading the first-ever Ramah Tikvah Birthright Israel Onward disabilities service trip provided insight into how a group of adults ages 21 to 41—all with intellectual and developmental disabilities (most on the autism spectrum)—are capable of connecting deeply with the Jewish homeland and its people, and of making important contributions through their volunteer efforts.

The delegation, all current participants or alumni of Ramah Tikvah disability inclusion programs, have spent many summers at Ramah camps, where they have forged ties with Israelis from their mishlachot (Israeli delegations), learned Israeli songs and dances, and grown to appreciate the importance of the Jewish state in their lives.

When the war with Hamas in Gaza broke last October following the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, participants in Ramah Tikvah programs began seeing community and family members—and friends from their respective camp communities—travel to Israel on service trips. They began to wonder if they might have a similar opportunity to contribute during Israel’s time of extreme need.

Perhaps Birthright Israel Onward would offer a solution?

Taglit Birthright Israel offers a dozen “classic” trips with necessary supports and accommodations for participants with mobility challenges, inflammatory bowel disorders and other medical issues, as well as an American Sign Language program, a trip for those in 12-step recovery programs and more. In addition, the Birthright Israel Onward program facilitates internships, fellowships, academic study and volunteer opportunities in Israel.

When I pitched the idea of a volunteer trip for people with disabilities, Onward Israel CEO Ilan Wagner immediately gave the green light. This group would need accommodations not usually provided to typical Birthright Israel Onward participants, including staff accompanying the group on the flight and 24/7 throughout the trip; three meals daily; hotel rather than group apartment accommodations; and additional structured activities once their morning of volunteering was over.

Last month, even as the war in the Gaza Strip and the hostage situation continued and with an escalation of war looming between Hezbollah in the north, 12 participants and four staff members boarded flights or took cars or trains from St. Louis, Detroit, Columbus, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Berkeley, Calgary, New Jersey and New Haven for flights to Israel. We arrived at a hotel in Tel Aviv ate dinner, got some rest and hit the ground running the next day.

Birthright Disability Inclusion Trip
Volunteers pack boxes on a disability inclusion trip sponsored by Birthright Israel, September 2024. Photo by Howard Blas.

We recited the Shehecheyanu prayer in honor of this pioneering trip and had morning services at the Nahum Gutman Mosaic Fountain in Tel Aviv. We then headed out—Bingo cards in hand—in search of various famous Tel Aviv landmarks on the Independence Trail. After lunch, we visited the Israel ParaSport Center in Ramat Gan. Our guide, Caroline, who was born paralyzed, is the No. 6 wheelchair table-tennis player in the world and shared what sports means to her. We also had a chance to watch Israel’s national wheelchair basketball team engage in a tough practice, and after speaking with team members, got to try out the specially designed chairs.

Then, it was off to a small Chabad shul in Tel Aviv to do our part for the Tzitzit for Tzahal project—an initiative to prepare 200,000 pairs of ritual army-green fringes for soldiers.

The next day saw us at Pitchon Lev: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty in Rishon Letzion, where we assembled 180 large boxes and filled each with diapers and four packs of wipes. Following our busy and satisfying morning of volunteering, we had lunch—pizza and grill were both exciting options for the hungry volunteers—before setting off for a special tour of the ANU Museum of the Jewish People on the campus of Tel Aviv University. After dinner, we ended our day with a rhythmic movement activity.

On Friday, we made a trip to Jerusalem so the few first-time visitors to Israel could visit the city. Everyone enjoyed shopping on Ben-Yehuda Street, riding EZRaider electric motorized vehicles, and touring the Old City and the Western Wall before heading back to Tel Aviv in time for prayers, Shabbat dinner and an Oneg Shabbat, complete with an UNO card-game marathon.

Shabbat started with morning prayers at the beach, followed by swimming in the Mediterranean, a walk, lunch and visits by Israeli friends and family members. We ended with a beautiful Havdalah service that reminded participants of the many similar ones at their respective camps.

On Sunday, we set off for the first of two days of olive picking at Harvest Helpers Leket Israel in Rishon Letzion. We learned that our olives would be made into olive oil for Israelis in need. Our participants once again felt a connection between their volunteer work and people receiving direct benefits.

Our afternoon visit to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv was quite emotional. We walked through a makeshift tunnel, looked at the empty Shabbat table and chairs (now under a sukkah) in tribute to the hostages, viewed art installations and purchased “Bring Them Home Now” shirts, dog tags and ribbons.

On Monday, in the middle of our breakfast, the staff learned that out of an abundance of caution as the situation in the north was heating up, we were being instructed by the Situation Monitoring Room to leave the hotel in under an hour and relocate to Jerusalem after our morning of olive-picking. Participants remained calm, adjusting to an abrupt change of plans (not usually easy for people with autism) and quickly packing up. Our scheduled culinary tour in Tel Aviv turned into a similar tour in Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda open-air market, a walk through the adjoining Nachlaot neighborhood and a stop for some ice-cream.

Our last full day in Israel began at Pantry Packers, where we worked in four-person teams to pack peas and other dried goods for Israel’s needy. After putting on aprons and hairnets, two team members placed separate labels on bags, one operated the machine that dispensed the grains into bags, and one used the sealing machine. Our day—and rewarding week in Israel—began winding down with pizza and a swim party at a brand-new pool at a country club in Har Homa.

Birthright Disability Inclusion Trip
Volunteers outside a warehouse on a disability inclusion trip sponsored by Birthright Israel, September 2024. Photo by Howard Blas.

Back at the hotel, participants shared highlights of the trip. Annie thanked her “lovely roommate.” She added that “the trip was a good experience for me. I’m going to start crying.” Maddy, who noted that she volunteers thousands of hours per year, felt that the Israel ParaSport visit “got me thinking of physical disabilities in ways I never have.” Jesse felt a true sense of belonging he said he never felt at home. On Birthright, he said, “I feel like you guys were all my family.”

Our tour guide, Rotem, encouraged the group to go home and serve as ambassadors, sharing their experiences. The participants were unified in asking one question: “When can we come back and do this again?”

My hope is that the Jewish community will continue to create meaningful opportunities—in the United States, Canada and Israel—for adults who have both disabilities and amazing strengths, so as to be fully included and feel a sense of belonging.

Howard Blas

Howard Blas

Howard Blas is a social worker and special-education teacher by training. He teaches Jewish studies and bar/bat mitzvah to students with a range of disabilities, leads disability trips to Israel and writes regularly for many Jewish publications, including JNS.org.

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View Original Post on the: Times of Israel

A group of Camp Ramah/Birthright participants help pack food supplies in Israel, September 2024. The trip was for adults with non-physical disabilities who volunteered in various locations around Israel. (courtesy Howard Blas)

At a farm in central Israel on Monday, a group of American volunteers spread out through the olive groves holding an informal, friendly harvesting competition. Wearing heavy gloves in the late morning heat and carrying thick plastic buckets to collect the spoils, the group moved quickly and soon assembled a sizable haul of hard, green olives.

It was not the usual group of volunteers from abroad: the 12 participants all were on the autistic spectrum or had other non-physical disabilities, in what sponsor Birthright Israel said was the-first-of-its-kind volunteer group to visit Israel during the Israel-Hamas war.

This trip was “different because we’re doing a lot more of my kind of things. I love volunteering,” said participant Maddy Katz, a young woman with glasses who proudly showed the olives she had gathered.

They almost didn’t make it to pick olives at Harvest Helpers, a farm in Rishon Lezion run by food rescue organization Leket Israel, because that morning, due to the escalating situation in Israel’s north, they learned that they would have to relocate from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for the last few days of their visit.

Having to quickly pack their things and change the itinerary at the last minute didn’t phase Katz, who said the trip had “a lot of moving parts.” She was looking forward to going home to Columbus, Ohio, where her first priorities would be “sleep, shower and laundry,” and then updating her binder, where she keeps records of her 80,000 hours of volunteering over the last 10 years.

Group of Camp Ramah/Birthright participants and their guides in Tel Aviv, September 2024. The trip was for adults with non-physical disabilities who volunteered in various locations around Israel. (courtesy Howard Blas)

The volunteer group, due to return to the US early Wednesday, was sponsored by Conservative Judaism’s National Ramah Tikvah Network and Birthright Israel’s Onward program. All the volunteers had previously participated in Ramah camps in the US and most had already been in Israel.

According to Birthright Israel, this was the first volunteering trip for disabled adults during the conflict. Since November 2023, Birthright has brought over 7,500 volunteers on similar trips to Israel, they noted, and organized its first “accessible trip” in 2001.

In addition to agricultural work, the group’s 10-day visit included volunteer activities where they helped pack up food and supplies, but they also toured Israel’s Paralympic training facility, spent time in Tel Aviv, visited the Western Wall, and more.

Group of Camp Ramah/Birthright participants harvesting olives in Rishon Lezion, September 2024. The trip was for adults with non-physical disabilities who volunteered in various locations around Israel. (courtesy Howard Blas)

“I think that with the war going on and all that stuff, I wanted to go to give back to the community because everyone, especially up in the north, is really having a hard time dealing with the rockets and the fires,” he said.

Michael ‘GG’ Goodgold, an American volunteer harvesting olives in Rishon Lezion, on September 23, 2024. Goodgold was part of a trip for adults with non-physical disabilities who volunteered in various locations around Israel. (Gavriel Fiske/Times of Israel)


Goodgold, who stays “on top of the news from Israel no matter what time it is,” said that it actually “felt peaceful” being in Israel, despite the war, and he particularly enjoyed visiting the beach in Tel Aviv.

Annie Michaels, also from Chicago, has been to Israel “nine or 10 times,” she said. This trip had been “a very good experience” partly because it was “my really first time being alone, volunteering and doing all these activities on my own independently,” without her immediate family.

(The group was accompanied by several guides at all times and individual members were allowed to independently visit their family in Israel.)

“I’m happy to stay. I’m sad to leave,” Michaels said, but added that back home, she “feels great” to be able to share stories about her visits to Israel or about “what was happening when I’m volunteering and just giving back to the world.”

Annie Michaels, an American volunteer harvesting olives in Rishon Lezion, on September 23, 2024. Michaels was part of a trip for adults with non-physical disabilities who volunteered in various locations around Israel. (Gavriel Fiske/Times of Israel)

For Hannah Berman from New Jersey, the olive picking was a new experience. “I’ve never picked olives before. It’s a lot of work,” she said, showing her hand, which had red scrapes.

Nonetheless, “I don’t know how excited I am to go back,” she said wistfully, but she admitted that she would be “excited to see my family.”

Back home, Berman said, she was busy working on her autobiography, for which she conducts interviews with people in her life. This Israel trip won’t be included, she said, because she “has already picked the endpoint,” from before the trip.

Hannah Berman, an American volunteer harvesting olives in Rishon Lezion, on September 23, 2024. Berman was part of a trip for adults with non-physical disabilities who volunteered in various locations around Israel. (Gavriel Fiske/Times of Israel)

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The original article is published in Relix Jan/Feb, 2023. Page 17

“Steely Dead started as a big ‘what if’ question,” explains founder and lead guitarist Dave Abear. “We’ve all been playing Dead songs forever,” adds drummer Chris Sheldon. “At the same time,” Abear jumps back in, “we were always big Steely Dan fans.” Sheldon, Dave, Dave’s brother Matt Abear (bass) and Dylan Teifer (keys) first came together five years ago. After drawing a few hundred fans to their initial shows in Colorado, the musicians had a break-through moment when they sold out Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads shortly before COVID hit.

Though Steely Dan’s tightly scripted songs and the Grateful Dead’s long-winding improvisational jams may seem like an unnatural match, those bands actually shared an intertwined history long before Abear started his project. The Steely Dan hit “Kid Charlemagne” even references Owsley “Bear” Stanley, the Dead’s legendary sound engineer and LSD chemist. “We like to say we Dead down the Dan and Dan up the Dead,” Dave says. “We stretch out the Dan stuff and tighten up the Dead.” The band pairs songs based on their feel. Classic combos like “Dealin’ in the Years,” a swirl of “Deal” and “Reelin’ in the Years,” “just work so well together,” says Dave, noting their perfect match of “grooves and keys.” The tune-which often serves as a set closer-starts and ends with “Deal,” sandwiching the Steely Dan melody in the middle. Other prearranged combos include “Fezeree” (“Fez” and “Sugaree”) and “Truck Friday” (“Truckin’ and “Black Friday”).

Similar to many jambands, their sets are determined on the fly, with band members using hand signals or audibles to indicate the next song. Some mashups are determined live onstage, so “you might not hear the same combo every time,” says Chris. And the fans are kept guessing about the second half of each number. Chris, though, is used to the challenge, as the longtime drummer in mashup band DeadPhish Orchestra. Does the band ever get stuck trying to find a perfect match for a given song? Absolutely, admits Dave, who
says there’s only one solution. “We just ask ourselves, ‘What would Jerry do?””

steelydead.com

Howard Blas

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