February was Jewish Disability, Awareness and Inclusion Month

Source: ADI on Facebook

I know, I know. With disabilities in Israel at the forefront of my mind, I shouldn't be noting that February 2023 is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance & Inclusion Month - on its very last day. 

But, at this point, there's no alternative.

If anyone needs a push to fight for equal rights and true inclusion of those with disabilities, ADI , as usual, provided it. Here is a post on its Facebook page dated February 21, 2023:

OPENING HEARTS & MINDS IN THE O.C.! The celebration of #JDAIM (Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month) continues throughout February, and ADI's North American Director of Development Elie Klein kicked off the third week of his coast-to-coast tour of Jewish National Fund - USA communities with an incredible home hosted reception in Orange County, California. The venue was exquisite, the food was delicious and the company was exceptional, but ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran still stole the show, capturing hearts and imaginations while highlighting the beauty of true disability inclusion. All in attendance were blown away by the sheer size of the rehabilitation village and the scope of its vision, and they expressed a desire to learn more and support its continued growth and development. City after wonderful city, #JDAIM education is opening the door to year-round empowerment! 

ADI assiduously promulgates the notion that its frameworks constitute inclusion for people with disabilities. That alone elicits a flood of support and cash. 

Of course, as its accounts have shown in the past, the herculean portion of its funding still comes from the government of Israel, i.e. taxpayers'  money. 

But the generosity of Americans, like those in photograph featured prominently on their Facebook entry, should not be underestimated. 

Presumably, nobody in this audience asked Elie Klein how the institutionalization of over 220 babies, children and adults in two large, locked buildings could, by any stretch of the imagination, qualify as "inclusion". 

Regardless of the "sheer size" of the "village", or, rather because of its "sheer size", its continued existence in contemporary Israel is outrageous. For a reminder, "How Israel treats its disabled has been concealed for too long". 

Please remember that in case you too are approached by ADI's well-oiled solicitation machine during the upcoming holiday season.

More on marching back to the Middle Ages

Attention all who are concerned to get a better understanding of the Ministry's March Back to the Middle Ages. I described the process a few days ago.

If you would like to learn about the new legislation which the Ministry of Welfare and Social Justice is proposing, head for this event. Adv. Naama Lerner, CEO of  Hatnuah L'Atzmaut - the Movement for Independence will deliver a zoom lecture. entitled Zero Restraints. 

It's scheduled for February 19, 2023 at 20:30 Israel time.

Adv Lerner will be addressing these topics::

1. What is the Israeli reality today in the field of restraint of people with disabilities in frameworks supervised by the Ministry?
2. What is a non-violent and effective alternative coping approach?
3. A brief background to the ongoing struggle these days against the Ministry's memorandum of law intended to legalize and anchor the use of restraints.

Here is the link you need to register.

The lecture will be in Hebrew and will be recorded for posting on the organization's Facebook page.

The Ministry's march back to the Middle Ages

Restraint bed: Illustration from a Disability Rights California guide 

This month, Israel's Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs (משרד הרווחה והביטחון ההחברתי) announced that it will be enacting a law which will regulate the use of "restrictive protective measures" in institutions for people with disabilities.

The mere phrase sounds alarm bells. 

That is, for anyone concerned about the welfare of our most vulnerable citizens and, of course, for those citizens themselves. 

But, somehow, these words are used acceptingly by most everyone else. That would explain why the infliction of such measures - which include restraint chairs, bed restraints and isolation - has thus far been dealt with only in the Ministry's internal procedures. 

The institutions have enjoyed extremely broad discretion in their use. According to the Ministry's recent memorandum, this practice has "increased the potential for harming the rights of people with disabilities and the staff working in the frameworks".

That new memorandum of the law states that a restrictive protective measure will be defined as one that 

"reduces the movement of a person in space, including the movement of his body, with the aim of maintaining the personal safety of the person or others from actual risk."

Beyond this, it does not specify the restrictive measures that will be regulated. Nor the duration and frequency of their use.

Moreover, once it is enacted, the use of such measures against a person will only be permitted after other options to prevent the danger have been examined and ruled out. The prior approval of professionals as will be stipulated in the regulations will also be required. 

And, finally, the use of these measures will be brought to a re-discussion once every period of time to be determined later.

However - and this creates a huge loophole - the amendment continues:

"In exceptional emergency cases that could not be foreseen in advance, it will be possible to take restrictive protective measures that were allowed to be used in the regulations in emergency cases without prior approval from the authorities, provided that their use is reported as soon as possible to the authority authorized to do so to be determined by the minister."

In other words, whenever the institution's employees deem a situation to be an "emergency" they are free to act as they please. Not surprisingly, advocates for the rights of people with disabilities are outraged by the Ministry's decision. 

Bizchut, The Center for the Human Rights of People with Disabilities, had already submitted a petition to the High Court protesting the use of such measures months prior to the memorandum.

The group's attorney, Vered Bar, now said of the impending amendment that it 

"reflects shocking perceptions regarding people with disabilities. We could not imagine a parallel procedure which allows restrictions regarding any other population."

She added that it 

"will allow the Minister to determine the use of restraints as he sees fit. Those staff members who have been exposed just this past year as having perpetrated violence, abuse and neglect will be the very ones to determine whether a person will be locked up or tied to a chair."

Naama Lerner from Hatnuah L'Atzmaut - the Movement for Independence, an organization working to promote "independent life with personal assistance for every person with a disability in Israel", warned that accepting the memorandum of the law would cast a "terrible stain on the State of Israel".

According to her, the "calming measures" that the Ministry will adopt include

"tying people to a heavy metal chair so that they cannot get up from it and move around or locking people in isolation rooms that have nothing but a thin mattress on the floor."

She explained that "These are means of intimidation, humiliation and abuse.". And noted that after receiving a permit, "it is unlikely that the caregiver in the institutions will comply with the usage restrictions that will be established."

This amendment is propelling us back to the middle ages.

But we may succeed in blocking its enactment by inundating the Ministry with our objections. Here is the link for lodging your complaint. The cutoff date is March 5, 2023

The following (translated by me from the Hebrew original) is an excerpt from the response of a person diagnosed with Autism to the proposed amendment: He is non-verbal and communicates only via his keyboard:

"The thin veil of civility that has covered society since dark times is crumbling. We are a society where there are laws against abuse of the helpless, like in advanced societies in the western world. A person is no longer put in a dungeon just because he looks different and behaves differently... And suddenly, someone in the Welfare Ministry woke up, scratched his scalp and enacted a law that means: the celebration is over. Enough, you've had enough. You are the disease, and we have a cure - punishment for "bad behavior"...  Someone in the Welfare office thinks we are very spoiled and need to be restrained. It was important to him to convey to us the message that life is not therapy but survival. A jungle!" [Source: Shavvim]

Let's not abandon him and others sharing his plight.

Don't we deserve better than this lamentable leadership?

A Jordanian news report from 2017 includes this photo of

American Jewish leaders meeting with King Abdullah II.
The report quotes the king, but not the Jews.

Et tu Brute?

Those words are uttered at a dramatic juncture in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by the dying emperor at the moment he is assasssinated by his friend Marcus Junius Brutus.

They come to mind whenever I learn of a recent and deplorable Jewish practice that directly impacts on me in personal and unspeakably painful ways.

Here's how Jewish Insider reported a Washington gathering on February 2, 2023:

King Abdullah II of Jordan met with Jewish leaders in Washington, D.C., yesterday. Those in attendance included Rabbi Marc Schneier, Ted Deutch, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Jonathan Greenblatt, Susie Gelman, Hadar Susskind, Dana Gershon, Betty Ehrenberg, Jason Isaacson, John Hannah and Harriet Schleifer.

There's a Jordanian news report [here] as well. As usual, no Jews are named or quoted.

On February 3, 2023, Jordan's Royal Hashemite Court published
and disseminated this photo to illustrate its report under the headline
"King meets representatives of international,
US Jewish organisations"

It's become an annual tradition. Eexecutives of major Jewish organizations in the US solemnly file into a meeting room in some fancy hotel or embassy hall and pay their utmost respects to the visiting ruler of Jordan. he speaks, and his words are faithfully reported in Jordan's media. 

I don't personally know most of the people in the list. And since this hasn't been reported anywhere, I don't know what they said. Or whether they spoke at all.

I do however know something about what previous groups of Jewish leaders said and didn't say when they met the Jordanian. And what they have and have not said publicly to America's top political leaders. 

My husband and I [see This Ongoing War] have been outspoken for years about the abject failures of America's Jewish leadership in the Tamimi/Jordan/justice affair.

From a quick check on the web, I see all the distinguished Jewish people meeting King Abdullah this past Thursday hold leading positions in significant organizations (listed alphabetically) that include:

• Americans for Peace Now (educating Americans about "policies that will lead to comprehensive, durable, Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace")
• The American Jewish Committee ("the leading global Jewish advocacy organization")
• The Anti Defamation League
• The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
• The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding ("to build Muslim-Jewish relations globally")
• Israel Policy Forum ("mobilize support among American Jewish leaders and U.S. policymakers for the realization of a viable two-state solution")
• J Street ("we advocate for diplomacy-first American leadership and policies that advance justice")
• The Jewish Institute for National Security of America
  
• National Council of Jewish Women ("social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms")
• World Jewish Congress ("to foster the unity and represent the interests of the Jewish people")

I know I should have grown used to it. But the pain these encounters inflict only intensifies with time.

My Malki's photos speak to me every day when I am in their presence in our living room. Her gentle eyes, sweet smile, modesty and love radiate from them. Since she was murdered in the Sbarro terror bombing in the summer of 2001, it's the only way she communicates with me.

As I peruse them tonight, I am reminded afresh that Jewish leaders promoting themselves in the Jewish media and mailed solicitations as staunch advocates of rights of the Jews evidently care not one bit about her or us.

Malki's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, indicted in Washington in 2013 (though this was kept secret until; 2017) is protected and shielded from justice by King Abdullah II of Jordan. And, whatever the leaders say, this clearly doesn't matter one iota to them.

The facts are so clear to me and, as far as I can tell, so irrelevant to them.

The fact that Jordan and the United States have had a valid and active extradition treaty since the days of the Clinton administration and the late King Hussein - the father of today's monarch. 

The fact that the U.S. Department of Justice has demanded that Jordan extradite her under it, and hand her over to the FBI's waiting arms so she can be brought to criminal trial in Washington.

The fact that King Abdullah has authorized the rejection of that demand since Tamimi's indictment. 

The fact whenever he calls, they come running, as they did last week.

It is an incomprehensible exhibition of sycophancy toward a man who is brazenly using them to buttress his position as a close ally of the U.S. And, most important, as the world's largest recipient of U.S. financial aid - now running at some $1.5 billion a year.

Jordan's disdain for Israel is apparently not a factor for Jewish leaders when deciding whether to accept the vaunted invitation of His Majesty (as they usually refer to him).

In meetings, letters and phone calls with many of those leaders we have pleaded since 2017 for their assistance in pressuring the United States to get Jordan to comply with its treaty obligation. All produced nothing more than demeaning, dismissive responses.

What a pathetic show of spinelessness.

Remember this when these organizations next solicit your donation.