Tikvah

KAITLYN FINCHLER kfinchler@cjn.org Posted Oct 23, 2024 at 8: 30 AM

You can view the original article here at Columbus Jewish News

Maddy Katz, 27, packs food for low-income residents at Pantry Packers in Israel. Submitted photo

In an effort to encourage people with disabilities to go on Birthright trips to Israel, residents across the United States traveled with Camp Ramah to volunteer, sightsee and engage in Jewish traditions in the country.

Maddy Katz, a 27-year-old Columbus resident, took part in one of these trips from Sept. 16 to Sept. 24.

Some of the highlights of the trip for Katz were watching and trying wheelchair paralympic basketball, picking olives on a farm, packing food for low-income people, making tzitzit for soldiers, seeing friends and family, watching sunsets, celebrating Shabbat and trying new foods, she told the Columbus Jewish News.

“I have ADD/ADHD,” she said in an email. “So, visuals are very helpful and we had a lot of people who were like that on this trip. We had one person who was missing a limb and a couple people with food allergies – also me. It was a lot of (fun) learning about everyone and everyone’s special talents.”

Howard Blas, senior adviser at the National Ramah Tikvah Network, organized the trip with Birthright Israel.

PHOTOS: Columbus resident reflects on Camp Ramah, Birthright Israel trip

Maddy Katz, a Columbus resident, does a double thumbs-up outside of the Harmony Hotel Jerusalem.
Emily, left, Ben, Maddy Katz and Rachel – all friends from camp – at the Anu Museum in Tel Aviv
Maddy Katz, a congregant of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, holds up a zeet zeet she made for soldiers
Maddy Katz wearing her grandfather’s talliet and tafflin at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Maddy Katz wears a sweatshirt reading, “always your neighbor” to represent the food bank, Neighborhood Services, Inc., that she volunteers for, while in Israel.
A sign in Hostages Square that reads, “TIKVAH,” in Tel Aviv.

“A lot of people started getting the idea that volunteering in Israel was a nice way to pitch in and show support and help out,” Blas, a New Haven, Conn., resident, told the CJN. “I got the idea that maybe people with disabilities would also have something to contribute.”

Blas said he approached Birthright since he had organized trips for people with disabilities for the organization before, and they were “very supportive” and said “let’s do it.”

The group unexpectedly had to relocate to Jerusalem on the last night of the trip due to safety concerns, but organizers tried to minimize unpredictable occurrences, Blas, a congregant of The Westville Synagogue in Westville, Conn., said. Traveling with people with disabilities comes at a higher cost than a typical trip to Israel.

“Our population needs more support and we need staff,” he said. “We need to fly with them. We need to have extra activities and hotels will be better, meals will be better. So, (Birthright) basically picked up the cost of all those accommodations for our group.”

Katz said this trip was geared towards everyone’s individual needs at a “much slower pace” and more her speed.

“We’re flexible,” Blas said. “Even though it’s very structured, if we see that people are really tired and we’ve overestimated how much we can get done in a day, we can reevaluate. We were very impressed with the group’s flexibility.”

It was “extraordinary” to see the realization in the participants that they were able to do everything their families had done on other Birthright trips, Blas said.

Planning for trips with neurodivergent participants means more structure, Blas said. Free time is “not usually the best” for these trips, so off-time was filled with activities and excursions.

Katz, who volunteers “a lot” with Neighborhood Services Inc., a food bank in Columbus, said the participants prayed “the Camp Ramah ways” with tunes from camp, and saw Jewish sites such as Hostage Square, Old Jerusalem, food markets and more.

Hoping more Jewish leaders will recognize the importance of these specialized trips, people with disabilities need to be considered as the same priority as neurotypical people and people without disabilities for Birthright trips, Blas said.

The next trip akin to this with Birthright will be in December for individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Katz, a congregant of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, previously went to Israel on a Birthright trip with Blas in December 2017. She wanted to go again because Blas was “very organized” and a “great leader,” and wanted to be with people like her, she said.

“The first trip was much more fast-paced and moving around a lot,” Katz, who works part-time at the Grandview Yard Giant Eagle in Columbus, said. “This trip was one – a different city for the last night for safety, not planned – hotel and it was much more volunteering, which is what I love.”

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Original Article Published On Ramah Boston

As the director of the National Ramah Tikvah Network, I have the privilege of visiting our Ramah camps and helping directors and Tikvah directors support children and young adults with disabilities as they are included in the camp community. I have visited every overnight camp at least once and am visiting three of our day camps this summer. What a treat to see Ramah Day Camp Greater Boston in action last week — during Yom Sport! 

While the quality of programming, variety of activities, great structure and responsible, enthusiastic staff are all worthy of blog posts, I would like to focus on the seamless and intentional inclusion of campers with support needs that was apparent as I walked the grounds and met with Rabbi Silverman and Tzviyah Kusnitz, the Tikvah (inclusion) director. Most camps are committed to including people with disabilities. New camps often make the understandable decision to get established for a year or two before introducing people with disabilities into the community. At the Boston Day Camp, campers and staff with visible and invisible disabilities have been included and supported from the start; they are contributing a great deal to camp.

Rabbi Silverman received a call from the parents of Binny, a young man in the community in search of a vocational training program. She and her staff developed a plan for Binny: he joins campers on the bus to and from camp each day, sets the Chadar Ochel (dining room) for lunch, distributes snacks, and participates in Jewish learning, chugim (electives) and more. 

When I contacted Rabbi Silverman about a 54-year-old former camper of mine from the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah New England who was hoping to work for a week or two at camp while on vacation from his job at a Boston supermarket (yes – we have been in touch all these years!), she reminded me that she did not formally offer a job training or supported employment program, but she would be happy to interview him and see if he might be a good fit for an open position. Matthew had expressed interest in so many areas of camp. He will soon arrive to work as an assistant on the sports staff. 

While the program that supports people with disabilities at the Boston Day Camp is in its infancy, Tzviyah has provided training and tools to enable staff to support their campers with various disabilities and support needs. For example, Tzviyah recognized that some campers need a quieter space for lunch and a quieter space was found. A sensory space has been established for campers who might need a break from their regular routine. In addition to working with the staff, Tzviyah communicates with parents and professionals as well.

The campers with disabilities clearly benefit from the support that camp provides. One thing I have learned in my nearly 40 years connected to the Tikvah Program at Ramah is that everyone benefits by having this at camp. Ramah Boston is on the road to changing attitudes through its inclusion of campers and staff with different abilities. I can’t wait to see how these efforts at Ramah Boston will continue to grow!

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Original Article Published on Camp Ramah New England

What a privilege to return for 24 hours to Camp Ramah in New England, the special place that turned me on to Tikvah, disabilities inclusion and vocational training way back in 1984. I have been connected to Ramah and Tikvah ever since and currently serve as director of our National Ramah Tikvah Network.

During my Palmer visit, I was eager to see the newly expanded vocational training building (“Voc Ed”) and share a little history of the building and the program with the staff. It all came back to me as I looked up from our afternoon voc ed staff meeting in the screened in porch and noticed the dedication plaque for the voc ed building from exactly 30 years ago-July 11, 1993—donated by the uncle of Jennifer Horn, a camper I remember very well.

I shared with the staff memories of the Pre Voc room, precursor to the Voc Ed program, which the visionary Tikvah directors, Herb and Barbara Greenberg, established in an old building near the agam. In the pre voc room, Tikvah campers developed such skills folding, filing, following directions and others potentially needed to secure and succeed at a job. I shared stories of the Voc Ed building itself, where participants learned to do laundry, cook and bake, and interact appropriately at a job site. I noted how I am still in touch with a 54-year-old former camper who has been working at a grocery store in Boston for decades and shared stories of others who have gone on to employment at camp and in their home communities.

What a treat to see the newly expanded building, with built in air conditioning and comfortable living quarters, designed to serve even more Voc Ed participants. And how lucky I was to serve as a job coach for the day, helping participants pack snacks for each bunk in camp. I was proud of former campers who have now progressed to the Voc program. Voc Eders currently perform such vital jobs in camp as chadar ochel (dining hall) set up, food prep, working at Café Roo (Ramah’s fancy coffee bar), sorting and delivering mail and packages and working in childcare at the gan.

Voc Ed is a valued and contributing part of the Ramah community. The expanded building is a welcome addition to the program!

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Original Article Published On The Jewish Philanthropy

The light bulb went off in the final minutes of the Zoom discussion of the movie “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” with disability rights pioneer and icon, Judith Heumann. In the Q&A for members of the Ramah camping community, one participant asked, “How do we give the typical campers a Tikvah experience if there is no camp this summer?” He was acknowledging the important reality that campers and staff would be denied the important opportunity to meaningfully interact in person with campers with disabilities from the Tikvah inclusion program.

Without missing a beat, Judy suggested that our synagogues and Jewish communal institutions mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which coincides with the same year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Tikvah.

The ADA, a civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on disability, was signed in 1990 by President Bush. The law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities and imposes accessibility requirements on public transportation. Ironically, religious entities like synagogues are completely exempt from portions of the ADA. All of their facilities, programs, and activities, whether they are religious or secular in nature, are exempt.

The ADA became a law twenty years after the Ramah camping movement started including campers with disabilities. In the early years, inclusion in Jewish summer camps was not a “given”. It required the persistence of passionate visionaries.

In the late 1960s, two special education teachers, Herb and Barbara Greenberg, proposed that Jewish children and young adults with disabilities be included in Jewish summer camps. Despite opposition by people claiming it would bankrupt the camps, disrupt the structure of the camps, lower the level of Hebrew and cause the “normal” campers to leave, the Greenbergs persisted. One Ramah director, Donny Adelman, said, “Why should Ramah exist if not for this reason?” He agreed to have Tikvah at his camp in Glen Spey, New York. In 1970, the camp welcomed eight young adults with disabilities. The camp soon moved to Camp Ramah in New England in Palmer, MA.

At around the time of Tikvah’s founding, Judy Heumann, a young camper with polio, was attending Camp Jened in upstate New York. “Crip Camp” profiles a group of teens with disabilities, including Judy, who attended Camp Jened during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Judy went on to become one of the most important and influential voices in the disability rights movement. Crip Camp won the Sundance Audience Award for US Documentary earlier this year.

Heumann personifies the history of disability rights in American. She fought to be included in the NYC public school system, took on the Board of Education in New York for the right to obtain a teaching license, founded Disabled in Action, and organized over 100 activists with disabilities to stage sit-ins in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The sit-ins laid the groundwork for the ADA.

Heumann’s years of activism include serving in the Clinton and Obama Administrations. Judy has a new memoir, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, and she is a proud and involved Jew and member of Adas Israel in Washington, DC.

Camp Ramah and the National Ramah Tikvah Network’s growth and development parallel Heumann’s lifetime of activism. We have continued to expand the inclusion of campers with disabilities in our camps in North America, and in our Israel programs.

I worked as a Tikvah counselor in 1984 at Camp Ramah in New England, served for many years as a division head and Tikvah director, and currently serve as the director of our National Ramah Tikvah Network and of the Tikvah Program at Ramah Galim in Northern California. In 2015, when Ramah Galim was about to open its doors, director Rabbi Sarah Shulman and her board of directors insisted they open for all campers only once a Tikvah program was in place.

Tikvah programs have served several thousand campers with disabilities, and dozens of our staff members have gone on to work in fields related to disabilities inclusion. Most importantly, perhaps, is the shaping of attitudes for thousands of campers, staff members, families, and Israeli staff members.

The Ramah Camping Movement is not offering in-person camp programs this summer, and we will reschedule some of our “Tikvah at 50” festivities. However, we continue to offer robust programming to all of our Ramah campers online. Each day, our campers, with and without disabilities, participate in various Ramah-style programs virtually. Tikvah vocational program participants are engaged in a 12-session virtual vocational training program.

Thanks to Judy’s suggestion, Ramah will jointly celebrate “Tikvah at 50” and “ADA at 30.” Activities will include a panel discussion entitled “Jewish Journeys: Tikvah’s Role in the Jewish Disability Narrative” and staff/parent movie nights featuring clips on the theme of disabilities inclusion, singing and dancing, prayer services and more.

We greatly appreciate Judy continuing to encourage us at Ramah to do more to be inclusive and aware of the needs of people with disabilities. Here are other ways Judy suggests the Jewish community mark ADA at 30:

  • Share sermons or divrei torah (from the bima or in writing) about ADA
  • Screen and discuss “Crip Camp” and other ReelAbilities movies which show the many abilities of people with disabilities
  • Make concrete strides to go beyond ADA to be more inclusive in our shuls
  • Review what has been done thus far for disabilities inclusion and establish objectives for between now and February (Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month).
  • Engage disabled and non-disabled people from your community – if not already doing so. (Many have already established task forces and working groups.)

Thousands of Jews have grown up at Jewish camps that include people with disabilities. They have seen first-hand how important it is for everyone to feel included. Let’s celebrate ADA at 30 with a renewed commitment to including everyone!

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