Monday, December 24, 2018

Making history: After the raid

The Knesset delegation [Image Source]
Well, as you may already have read, the Bizchut surprise raid actually took place. (I foreshadowed this earlier - see "Institutionalization: Upping the activism ante".)

On December 18, 2018, fifteen Members of Knesset fanned out across Israel to visit twelve large closed institutions for people with disabilities. Each Knesset member was accompanied by an activist on behalf of equal rights for people with disabilities. 

And thus I believe I transitioned into a disability activist because, I'm sure you'll agree, blog and article writing just doesn't cut it. 

Nachman Shai (of the Labor Party) was the Knesset member with whom I was paired. Along with his aide, we were given a tour of Aleh Jerusalem, an institution housing 80 residents with disabilities ranging from moderate to severe. They live in rooms of 3-4 beds and spend all day every day in a five story building that is surrounded by auto garages and parking lots.

Our guide treated us to a relentless barrage of PR prattle, some of it identical to the material I have read on the Aleh website. For example:
"We encourage the parents to remain parents and they are free to visit their children at any time of the day or night. Even if the child is asleep - needless to say, I'd discourage a mother from waking her child...." 
But interspersed with the interminable prattle were some telling points.
  • "Of the 80 residents, three are wards of the State." Only three!
  • "Some of the parents gave up their children because of lack of sufficient surrounding support"!!
  • "Some out of difficulty in organization."
  • "Not all families are 'built' for it." 
  • "We have a couple of staff members who are raising at home children with disabilities as severe as the residents. They fully understand the parents who place their children in Aleh."
  • "We encourage parents to maintain ties with their children and to have 'family events'". 
  • "We champion integration of the residents in the community. But since it's too difficult to take them out, we 'integrate by bringing the community into the institution.'"
I haven't had the time to transcribe all of the guide's hour long spiel.

Aleh Jerusalem [From the Aleh website]
In the meantime below are the comments that Yotam Tolub, Bizchut's Chief Executive. posted on our Whatsapp site on Tuesday after the raids:
"Today you tackled a super difficult task. To succeed in opening the eyes of a Knesset member encountering the issue for the first time and who came with unconscious stigmas of his own and to deal with not simple institutions some of them very misleading. And I believe that this entire group made history. There is no precedent in the State of Israel for activists to being Knesset members to see these closed places.There is no precedent for so much information about institutions to be revealed in one day. A mass of harsh testimonies and our job at Bizchut will be to share this with the world and little by little to create a crack in the wall."
And here is what Na'ama Lerner, Bizchut's Director of Community Outreach, posted:
"I sign off on every word that Yotam wrote. You see your success or lack of success in convincing or showing the specific Knesset member something specific. But let's look for a moment at the macro, the larger picture. What did we have today? 15 Knesset members, a truly large group by any criterion, which stopped its day for several hours to see how people with disabilities, on the periphery of Israeli society, live. To visit the most transparent, invisible people in the State of Israel. Fifteen Knesset members answered this call. This has never happened before!"
Here's the press coverage from Ynet's print edition and Ynet Television.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Institutionalization: Upping the activism ante

From the Bizchut brochure
I am thrilled to share news of a concerted Bizchut campaign now underway. Its target: large, closed Israeli institutions housing a total of 16,700 residents with cognitive disabilities.

 The following is from their recent circular about it:

"We cannot abandon the residents of institutions, the weakest and most silenced population within the disability community. Bizchut is embarking upon a systematic exposure of the state of human rights in these facilities.

Your support for this project will enable us to expose and take action to correct violations of rights in three ways:

  • Development of the MOSADOT app which will enable residents, relatives and professionals to submit complaints of violations of rights to Bizchut in real time.
  • Institution WATCH Training - for activists who will carry out surprise visits to institutions: the team will include persons with disabilities, relatives and concerned citizens.
  • Institution WATCH: Surprise Visits - Bizchut together with members of the Institution WATCH team will visit 20 institutions. Each visit will include preliminary collation of data on conditions in the facility, summary of findings after the visit, a report to the relevant government ministry and follow up on the violations exposed."
This is particularly welcome news for my husband and me. We are raising our 23 year old daughter at home despite the hardships that are rooted in a system favoring institutionalization. Citizens who, like our Chaya, suffer from multiple and severe disabilities are routinely separated from their families. 

The Bizchut logo 
That institution-bias results in generous funding for large, closed institutions coupled with meager assistance for families that keep their loved ones with disabilities at home.

Since we live in an "enlightened" age, the abuses that Bizchut has uncovered on its 2017 visits to those institutions may not strike many as alarming. Some may not even consider them deserving of a mention, let alone of an all-out campaign. And certainly not worthy of a visit to the Knesset like the one in session as I write.

Here are some examples:
  • High functioning residents are often kept together with very low functioning ones. Some of them are very intelligent and articulate - as Bizchut activists found when conversing with them. There appeared to be no reason for them to be banished from mainstream society. When questioned, institution employees explained that a few of those residents had chronic health issues such as heart ailments or diabetes requiring medical monitoring!
  • Residents were often found either sitting and staring into space around tables in bare rooms; at times there were several toys or puzzles on the table. Other residents were wandering around aimlessly. 
  • Their rooms contained no personal effects, no photographs of family. Walls were bare both in rooms and public spaces. Some bathrooms had no soap, toilet paper, tooth-brushes toothpaste or any personal hygiene items.
  • In some institutions, the structures were old and damaged and furnishings were dilapidated and broken. 
  • In one facility, door handles to all rooms had been removed, staff members carried a standard handle with keys to give them access to those rooms but residents were barred from their own rooms without staff assistance. 
  • In one facility several residents were missing teeth.
The list of critiques goes on and on. 

The director of one of those institutions wrote the Ministry of Health a detailed, itemized response. In every instance, he maintained that he and the staff were doing an exemplary job. The following are excerpted from his lengthy letter:
Regarding the inactivity/boredom complaint, he wrote:
  • "The facility offers a structured program which we trust you [Bizchut] discerned"
On the teeth issue:
  • "All residents receive annual dental exams... A dental technician periodically instructs the facility staff... Over the past 7 years, 15 residents have received implants..."
On the absence of door knobs:
  • "There are some residents with 'challenging behavior' which necessitates the removal of door handles to protect them and prevent them from locking themselves inside their rooms"
I am proud to participate in this campaign. Looking forward to sharing a report on that soon!

UPDATE December 23, 2018: The update is here.

Sunday, December 9, 2018

Can Florida's DeSantis help bring us justice?

Image Source
Kudos to Governor-elect of Florida, Ron DeSantis.

In his speech last week at the national conference of the Israeli American Council (IAC), he mentioned our murdered daughter, Malki, by name. She was one of fifteen victims of Hamas terrorist AhlamTamimi in the 2001 bombing of Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria. 

Thanks to Jordan's King Abdullah, Tamimi enjoys refuge and adulation in Amman in contravention of Jordan's extradition treaty with the U.S.

DeSantis went on to urge the Department of Justice to prosecute Palestinian terrorists who murder American citizens abroad. "I want justice," DeSantis said, noting that the United States extradites terrorists from other countries who murder American citizens.

DeSantis is the first U.S. politician to publicly recall Malki and the travesty of justice we have been battling since the nefarious Shalit Deal of 2011 released mass murderer Tamimi from Israeli prison.

Here's hoping his words will herald a wave of pressure by the U.S. on its so-called "ally" Jordan

The Trump administration's effusive embrace of King Abdullah is no less misguided and immoral than its relationship with Saudi prince, Mohammed bin Salman.