A room of one's own

Good night: My daughter asleep in her own bed,

in her own bedroom, in her own family's home

A High Court of Justice decision handed down in Israel on December 5, 2019 has been circulated this week among disability activists. I saw it and here are some brief details.

The plaintiff was Ronit Shmueli and the respondent was the Branch for the Care of People with Cognitive Disabilities in Israel's Ministry of Labor, Welfare and Social Services, .

In my words based on the Hebrew-language source, the court ruled that:

If a resident has requested a private room. the director of the institutional/framework will make an effort to assign a room to that person according to his/her request, taking into account the general circumstances and personal and professional considerations pertaining to that person and to the others who reside with him in the framework. 

In cases where a room in the institution where that person resides and that accords with the wishes of the applicant cannot be found, he/she will be placed on a waiting list... 

The Ministry will examine the subject of waiting for single occupancy rooms as part of its ongoing, comprehensive supervision of frameworks.

Having myself visited ADI's Jerusalem branch, let me assure you that residents there do not sleep in private rooms. But then I would have been surprised if they did. Remember: the head of the organization that operates those institutions fervently believes that life in a large, locked and isolated institution is, to quote him in a recent hagiographic article in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

"a home and a family providing a continuum of loving care from infancy and childhood through adulthood. Some of our residents are in their 60s.”

Puzzlingly, that piece also relates that, in a speech he gave at ADI's southern branch, Nahalat Eran, Doron Almog recalled: 

A man said to me recently, ‘We remember how you used to come here [he means a specific country club swimming pool] with your son, and some people used to ask, ‘Why is he bringing his retarded son here?’ and you said to one of them, ‘I think you are the one who belongs in a closed institution.’

Almog proceeded, shortly thereafter, to found just such a closed institution, Nahalat Eran, for vulnerable, defenseless children taken from their families.

Go figure.