Self-promotion and Holocaust Day

Image Source: ADI website

Nothing is off limits, it seems. No topic, no matter how sacred, is deemed by Doron Almog and his PR team as unrelated to the relentless campaign they wage to entrench institutionalization in Israel.

And so today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, they turned to nazism's evil as a defense. Yes, you read correctly: defense of the practice of removing people with disabilities, even children and babies, from their families to be locked up in large, isolated institutions for the remainder of their lives!

Readers, if you see any justification for that practice in the evil of nazism, please enlighten me! (I warn you, your chances of success are nil).

In case you are incredulous as to the ADI shenanigans and suspect I exaggerate, here are a couple of verbatim excerpts from ADI's two recent media statements. One, apparently, would not suffice.

Almog mentions the German youth who volunteered at Nahlat Eran as a gesture of atonement for the sins of their people during the Holocaust: 

"By volunteering in Israel with the most vulnerable members of our society, they are breaking the silence and making the exact opposite statement made by their grandparents just a few decades ago – that they consider Jews to be their brothers, that all people are equal, and that as humans, we are mutually responsible for one another.” ["Descendants of Holocaust perpetrators seek atonement in Israel", FORWARD, January 26, 2021] 

Excuse me for wondering. If "all people are equal", why are our most "vulnerable" as ADI enjoys labeling people with disabilities, not "equal enough" to merit a life within a family and community?!

And here is the second post: 

“Their grandparents [the volunteers] were indoctrinated in racist ideology. They thought they were the superior race. In 1939, Hitler rounded up disabled people and murdered them. Here, their grandchildren learn that we are all equal. That every life is precious.” [Facebook]

Once again, forgive my denseness. I just can't fathom how the separation of babies and children from their parents and siblings to languish in institutions demonstrates that "we are all equal. That every life is precious."

I urge you to call out the supporters of the vile practice of institutionalization - Israel's ongoing, thriving evil. They will persist in disseminating the above distortions and lies unless we raise our voices..

Aleh's marathon misstep

Israel's mammoth chain of institutions for children and adults with disabilities is constantly publicizing its activities - reprehensible though they are.

Its latest PR announcement reports that several supporters ran in a marathon to raise yet more cash for the flush Aleh coffers.

This is  newsworthy because - as Aleh pointed out - it was the first time that Aleh fundraisers participated towards that end in a foreign marathon.

But it is even more notable because the country which hosted the marathon in its capital, Germany, has been on the road toward de-institutionalization for over a decade.

In other words, Aleh's running fundraisers promoted a system of warehousing people with disabilities in a country that is busy abandoning that very system.

I'd say it's akin to demonstrating in the streets of Israel in support of honor killings in Pakistan, or of female genital mutilation in Somalia or of capital punishment in the United States - all practices illegal or avoided in Israel.

Already in 2007, a scholarly article, "Deinstitutionalization in Intellectual Disabilities" stated that

"In Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Greece the process of deinstitutionalization has recently begun but institutional care is still dominant."

That article reviewed studies of people who had been transferred from institutions to small community settings:

"People (250 were included in the study) were living in a variety of settings, from residential care to independent living. There was no relationship between cost and outcomes although people had a better quality of life in the community than they had had in the institutions." 

A smaller study was reviewed. It involved 30 matched pairs of people with moderate and severe intellectual disability and challenging behaviour. It produced equally encouraging results:

"Consistent with earlier research on deinstutionalization... they increased in adaptive behaviour, choice making and general quality of life."

To all you marathoners out there: How about running to improve the quality of life of our people with disabilities - instead of the finances of our largest chain of institutions.