Progress on one front - regress on another

Last week, a significant new appointment was announced after its year long vacancy: Chairman of the Jewish Agency.

The Agency's selection committee voted for IDF Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Doron Almog. Its decision still must be approved by its board of directors which will convene on July 10 in Jerusalem.

Image Source: A 2015 promotional campaign on Facebook

Anyone who reads this blog will understand why the choice left me devastated.

Almog founded and operates large, closed, isolated institutions for hundreds of children and young adults with disabilities. Nevertheless, for the Israeli public he is an icon who can do no wrong. The kudos after the announcement have been streaming in on every mainstream and social media platform.

On a WhatsApp group in which i take part - made up of disability activists for people with disabilities and for their families - I saw a "share" of a Facebook post by Sivan Rahav Meir, a well known Israeli journalist, praising him to the sky. 

So I wrote the following to my co-activists (in Hebrew):

It's sad and infuriating to learn that Doron Almog won the nomination for chairman of the Jewish Agency. This man has acted tirelessly and for decades to entrench the institutionalization of children and adults with disabilities.

Where is the progress in the fight for in-the-community living for every citizen, when a person with this background is presented as a hero as Sivan Rahav Meir has done?!

Naama Lerner, a lawyer, formerly an official with Bizchut and now one of the founders of Hatnua L'atzma'ut, also known as Movement for Independence, responded with this (again translated by me from the Hebrew source):

I agree with you entirely, Frimet. But it's really not politically correct to say that. He has wall-to-wall support. Not just from Sivan Rahav Meir. He is presented as someone who has set up a marvelous life's enterprise.

It's a place that has cut off tens of people with disabilities from their families, people whose parents live in the north and they were placed in Aleh Negev [in the south]. It's a place that boasts of its connection to the community but is located in "nowhere".

And its connection to the community is expressed by groups of soldiers visiting to "make the pathetic children living there happy". It's a place that looks good physically but is emotionally very barren, isolated and remote. Truly sad.

And when another member jumped to Almog's defense, Naama added:

I am not judging him [Doron Almog] at all. I am judging the Ministry of Welfare that followed him blindly and didn't point out to him the error of his ways. Aleh Negev was founded at a stage when the Ministry of Welfare had decided not to establish any more new institutions (but to proceed with founding hostels).  But nobody could stand up to Doron Almog. So he established it and that's entirely not to the credit of the welfare system. It's a place [now operating under the name ADI Negev] that suffers from all of the usual maladies of all institutions. I have received complaints against it, I have been there, it's an institution in every sense of the word. And are the residents satisfied?  Who knows? They've never seen another life and aren't aware of alternative options. Ask the residents of Neve Ha'irus* and they too will say they are satisfied."

*To understand the reference to Neve Ha'Irus, click here to see several of my previous blog posts dealing with that disgraced institution.

Alongside the comments about Almog's appointment, there is another Israel-centric topic garnering far more interest. Sometime this week, a new, long-awaited law for people with disabilities is expected to be enacted by Israel's lawmakers. The draft was pushed through the preliminary readings stages in recent days to ensure its passage before the Knesset disbands this week.

It is being hailed as "historic legislation" on the WhatsApp group I frequent. The hope is it will advance the right of people with disabilities and their families to choose life within the community and will hasten country-wide de-institutionalization.

While it isn't perfect, for now this appears to be the best law attainable.  

Meanwhile on the home front, click here to view another "major" achievement, this one by my daughter Haya as captured on YouTube.