Ramah Tikvah

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

View the original post on the Jewish News Syndicate

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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Original Article Published on The New York Jewish week

At the farewell dinner in Tel Aviv on the last night of our ten day Birthright Israel Amazing Israel Ramah Tikvah trip, we went around the table sharing memories and trip highlights. The 21 participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and the six staff members, representing five Ramah Tikvah Programs and twelve states—from Wisconsin to Alabama—spoke enthusiastically about the jeep ride on the Golan Heights, the de Karina chocolate making workshop at Kibbutz EIn Zivan, the Night Spectacular Sound and Light show at the Tower of David in Jerusalem, the Biblical Zoo, the view of Syria from Golan, Masada, the Dead Sea, the Kotel, and shwarma! The participants then asked for my highlight. It didn’t take long for me to share my answer, though my highlight was so much more than a place. “Tefillot and your knowledge of Israel and Judaism,” I replied, as the group asked for clarification.

Each day, our group met for morning prayers, in such places as hotel bomb shelters, banquet rooms, outdoor tents, and the bus. We used a special Tikvah siddur from Ramah camps, we faced east, and south—depending on our location. Some participants wore kippot, tallis and tefillin. And we sang such “classics” as Modeh Ani, Mah Tovu, Halleluya and Shema, and such Tikvah Ramah favorites as the Baruch SheaMARCH, Thank You, God, and The Rise and Shine Amidah Song. (The group had no problem MARCHING to the Baruch SheaMARCH prayer when we were praying in the hotel; they weren’t sure how we could safely march on the bus ride to Masada. We decided it was safer to sit!)

The participants got up early to sing and dance and share this meaningful experience with camp friends—all before eating a sumptuous hotel or kibbutz guest house breakfast. Alexa sat in the back of the room, or at the front of the group, using Hebrew sign language to sign each acrostic prayer—Ashrei, El Baruch and El Adon. She was happy to teach her friends Hebrew the sign language she learned at Camp Ramah in New England.

The California Ramah group recruited their friends to come up and lead the Shema and VeAhavta—making sure all eight members of the camp in Ojai, California were there.

Sam wanted to make sure we left time each morning for Adon Olam–and wondered, “Who will say the Shema with us each night before bed?”

Maddy, a female participant from Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, wanted to make sure she would have an opportunity to put on family heirloom tefillin—at the Kotel. We excused ourselves from the group’s tour of the Jerusalem Archaeological Park-Davidson Center, found a special spot, and had a few moments of special prayer, wrapped in tefillin.

The participants from the various Ramah Tikvah Programs felt a sense of connection to their fellow campers.  They enjoyed the predictability of the daily prayer ritual. And they looked forward to thanking God each day for the many gifts they have received. Isn’t that what prayer is all about?

Maddy asked me before the trip if she could lead birkat hamazone on Shabbat and we had a few takers for kiddush and hamotzi as well.

Our tour educator, Doron, an observant Jew himself, was blown away, observing that this knowledge of and enthusiasm for prayer was not typical of most Birthright trips, or any Israel trip for that matter. He was also impressed with their level of knowledge about Israel and Judaism in general.

When Henry offered a scholarly explanation at Tel Dan in the north to a question about Israel’s water issues, Doron calmly removed his tour guide license from around his neck and placed it on Henry. “You are our tour guide now!” Henry was so excited, sharing his YouTube video acquired knowledge about drip irrigation and desalinization. Doron used this “trick” on several occasions, rewarding participants particularly knowledgeable about the Old City of Jerusalem, Masada and more with the tour guide’s license.

In the Israel Museum, participants found many objects and exhibits to be familiar—including tefillin, chuppah, matzah baking, Chanukah menorahs and the three fully reconstructed synagogues.

In the north, at the Mishnaic village of Kfar Kedem, the lovely guide thought he would be introducing the group to pita making on a taboon (outdoor oven)—like he has done for years with so many tour groups. For this group, pita making was nothing new. Our Ramah camps each bring 40 or 50 shlichim (Israeli emissaries) to camp each summer. Our campers have been making pitot and eating fresh chumous for years!

Our ten day Israel trip was fun and educational for the participants. I too, learned a valuable lesson which we in the Jewish community should take to heart—and fund accordingly: people with disabilities are very capable of connecting in a meaningful way with Jewish ritual, practice, and knowledge, and with Israel. When our summer camps, synagogues, youth groups, schools, communities and Israel trips open their doors to include everyone, the payoff is as clear as the beautiful sky we saw from Jaffa on the last night of our trip of a lifetime.

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Original Article at The New York Jewish Week

A partnership between Ramah and Birthright brings young adults with disabilities to experience Israel

Los Angeles Jewish communal professional Michelle Wolf’s daughter had been on a Birthright Israel trip, and she wanted her 22-year-old son Danny to have the same experience. But until recently, she thought that a free Israel tour together with young peers was not in the cards for Danny, who has cerebral palsy and many specialized needs.

To Wolf’s delight, her son is headed to Israel this December on the first-ever Ramah Tikvah/Amazing Israel Birthright Israel trip. Ramah, the camping arm of Conservative Judaism, has organized Israel trips for Tikvah Program participants and alumni in the past. This, however, is the first one being offered in collaboration with the exceptionally successful initiative that has brought more than 600,000 young Jews to Israel since 1999.

“When we got an email about the trip, we were so excited! Danny is thrilled to be going to Israel with some of his friends from Camp Ramah in California, where he has gone for the last nine summers,” said Wolf.

According to National Ramah Tikvah Network director Howard Blas, between 20 and 25 young adults with disabilities are expected to fly to Israel from New York on December 18 for the 10-day adventure. The trip’s itinerary includes Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Galilee, and Masada. There will also be unique opportunities, such as a meeting and conversation with IDF soldiers with disabilities.

Many—though not all—of the 18- to 29-year-old participants will have attended a Tikvah Program at one or more of Ramah’s ten overnight camps. Those who have applied and been accepted to the trip hail from every region of North America.

Elana Naftalin-Kelman, Tikvah director at Camp Ramah in California, noted that the largest contingent is from her program.

“The combination of Birthright and Ramah is one that our families have been waiting for. Raising a child with disabilities is very expensive and families don’t have disposable income. This trip is finally giving our Tikvah families access to Israel for their children,” she said.

Naftalin-Kelman expects this Israel experience to deepen the relationships between the Ezra (vocational training program) participants and the other staff at her camp next summer.

“The young men and women in our Ezra program already have good connections with members of our mishlachat (visiting Israeli counselors), but I think those bonds will become even deeper this coming summer due to this trip,” she said.

Those who will have been on the Birthright trip will also be able to share common experiences and memories with neurotypical peers at camp who will likely have visited Israel with the Ramah Seminar summer program, or Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim, Ramah’s semester in Israel for high school students.

Tikvah Program founders Herb and Barbara Greenberg look forward to welcoming the Birthright group during their visit. The couple, which made aliyah in 1998, knows how much detailed planning goes into organizing an Israel trip for young people with disabilities.

“We organized the first Tikvah Israel trip in 1984, and it was not only a learning experience for our kids, but also for Israeli society, which was not used to seeing and interacting with groups like ours,” Barbara Greenberg said.

“Israel had no concept of inclusion to that point,” she said.

The Greenbergs led seven trips through the early 1990s (Blas led subsequent trips), each time increasing their knowledge about how to help young people with disabilities experience Israel. For instance, they discovered that everything on the itinerary had to be a hands-on and on-site activity.

“You can’t talk about the history of a place while riding on the bus. You have to talk about it when you are actually at the site, so that there is a visual, tactile and experiential context,” Herb Greenberg said.

These concrete connections help form strong memories for the trip participants.

“The kids come back with the same feelings as any other kid. They have a visceral connection to Israel and feel more Jewish,” Barbara Greenberg said.

New Yorker Jacklin Simoni is sending her 20-year-old daughter Nora, who attends the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah in New England, on this December’s trip for just this reason.

“I want her to see what I saw when I first visited Israel. I was so excited to visit Jerusalem and the wall, I felt I was part of a bigger community that just my own,” Simoni said.

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Original Article Published On The New York Jewish Week

Former Tikvah participant joins Israel hike to benefit the program that supported him in younger years

There is an important concept in the disabilities inclusion world known as “Nothing About Us Without Us.” This simply means that decisions or conversations having to do with people with disabilities must include people with disabilities. This seems pretty basic and straightforward. But could a strenuous five day bike ride and hike in Israel which supports people with disabilities include people with disabilities?

Every two years, the National Ramah Commission and the National Ramah Tikvah Network organizes the Ramah Israel Bike Ride and Hike to support the TIkvah Programs for participants with disabilities in our nine overnight and five day camps.   For the past two rides/hikes, we have been blessed with the participation of parents of Tikvah campers; they eloquently shared their stories with fellow riders and hikers. I have long dreamed of the day a participant or graduate of the program would join us on the ride or hike. Might this be possible?

We all know that people with disabilities often have amazing abilities! Might a campers or alum with a disability be able to handle the tough biking and hiking terrain of Israel? After all, we did have an amazing rider who happens to be blind ride (with a partner, on a tandem bike) and come back two years later as a hiker!

This year, we were approached by Avi, a 30 year old man who grew up in camp and worked for many years in camp as a salaried staff member. He had participated on several Tikvah Israel trips (10 days Israel trips for members of the Tikvah Program) and wanted to participate in a “normal” trip. He regularly joins a local hiking group for strenuous 10 plus mile hikes and was up for the challenge. He did not want anyone to know of his past affiliation with Tikvah. This was no longer relevant, he felt, as he works full time, dates, participates in Jewish communal life, and is capable of handling such a hike.

But how would this young man do on a five day hike which is so much more than just a hike? How would he deal with getting up and out early each day, changing hotels every day or two, navigating social situations, living with a roommate? Thanks to great hiking skills, a winning personality, a desire to succeed, a wonderful roommate, and supportive fellow hikers, this young man (who happens to have Aspergers) was a huge success. And he raised the level of the hiking experience and overall trip for everyone.

-“We couldn’t keep up with him on the snake path up Masada!”

“We had such wonderful conversations on the trails about dating, about the Jewish community and more.”

Many programs for people with disabilities are “separate” and do not include ongoing, meaningful interactions with neurotypical participants. When people with and without disabilities share an experience and form meaningful relationships, they get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and can help each other grow.

Hiking with Ramah. Courtesy of Howard Blas
Hiking with Ramah. Courtesy of Howard Blas

A very experienced hiker in his late 50s shared the following powerful story. “I saw Avi’s pants were falling down and asked if he had a belt. At first, Avi got defensive and said, “Are you telling me that because I have special needs?” “I replied, “Avi, I would tell any friend the same thing. I wouldn’t want them to feel embarrassed!” Avi smiled. He earned that caring friends can point out fashion faux pas, and remind you to drink water and re-apply sunscreen. This is not a special needs issue—this is a caring friends issue. Social skills are best learned in the context of caring relationships in real-life settings.

I look forward to our next ride and hike in two years. I hope more riders and hikers with disabilities will participate. The participation of each unique rider and hiker enhances the ride, hike and Israel trip for everyone.

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