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.

Topsy-turvy state: Is the head of a closed institution an "inclusion icon"?

Image Source: Israel National New

Live and learn.

It seems a person who champions the separation of children with disabilities from their families and locks them up in large institutions is none other than an "inclusion icon" ["Corona Cocoon: Inclusion icon shares her quarantine practices"].

No, that was no typo. The Aleh PR team actually dubbed the chief administrator of its Jerusalem branch with that moniker. It's akin to labeling a totalitarian leader "Defender of Democracy" or a drug lord "anti addiction". etc. You get my drift.

Around that time, Bizchut, the Israel Center for the Rights of People With Disabilities, circulated a newsletter which detailed two instances of its intervention to help individuals with disabilities escape institutions. Here is one [my translation from Hebrew]: 

"Dan, 26, has cognitive disabilities, autism and challenging behavior. He shuttled between various residential settings but didn't manage to settle in at any of them. Life in a big, remote institution disconnected him from his family and his community. In sheltered living, he resided with five others and needed to accommodate himself to a strict daily routine. Consequently, he experienced fits of rage or was pumped with psychiatric drugs. Dan's parents returned him to the community. They designed an independent, flexible program suited to his needs and abilities. His medical and emotional conditions improved. His attacks of rage have disappeared. He has friends in the neighborhood. He attends synogogue. He enjoys classes in arts and crafts, sport and gardening. But the subsidies that Dan receives only cover half the cost of the program. His parents have been paying for the rest. How much is that, you ask? Well, interestingly, it's less than his living expenses were at the institution. We approached the Ministry of Welfare with a request to supply people like Dan with services supporting life in the community or, alternatively, to cover the costs of a personal program which is, as stated, lower than the cost of life in an institution. This is the correct way to provide a person with services: funding or a personal basket which he can choose to implement. We will continue to update!"

But the struggle confronting Bizchut is constantly obstructed by our own government, one that encourages, praises and supports institutionalization.  

As we have grown to expect, yet another couple of government officials trotted off to Aleh last week to praise the denial of equal rights to our most vulnerable citizens. Aleh's Facebook page and website informed us that 

"Michael Biton, Minister for Civil and Social Matters in the Ministry of Defense visited the "Rehabilitation Village of Aleh Negev/Nahalat Eran". The chairman of the village, Doron Almog and CEO Avi Wurtzman conducted the visit to the site during which the Minister heard about the endeavors at the village and the educational and rehabilitative activities that are carried out there. He was also impressed by the rehabilitation day center and spoke to a patient who progressed extraordinarily thanks to the dedicated therapy and care of the staff there. The minister visited the therapeutic pool. horse farm, amphitheatre and the site of the rehabilitation hospital which will serve the needs of thousands of Negev residents. Minister Biton praised the employees of ALEH Negev-Nahalat Eran and their dedicated service and listened intently as he was told about the village’s history, its development over the years, its future vision and present challenges. Before departing, the Minister signed the village guest book, writing that, “a visit to ALEH Negev-Nahalat Eran is an obligation for every Israeli. A special thank you for all that you do to benefit IDF veterans with disabilities and the residents of Yerucham and the Negev, so close to my heart.”

Source: Screen Cap

And just two days later another government official, Minister of Diaspora Affairs Omer Yankelevich, enjoyed a repeat performance by PR chief Doron Almog, and CEO Avi Wurtzman. The Minister heard about the major projects, ranging from the construction of that much-touted rehabilitation hospital to the volunteerism of "hundreds of diaspora youths" - you know, to make it all relevant to her domain. 

We learn from Aleh that afterwards the Minister 

"praised the endeavors of the Village... blessed the administration of the place and the staff in the guest book and wrote 'To the warmest, most special, moral and humane home in the world. Thanks to you we learn what a person's role is in the world...Thank you for nurturing values the merits of which take center stage in Israeli society and in the Diaspora...Thanks to you the next generation will be different..." [Source]

The Minister obviously has a soft spot for hyperbole.. And she is also obviously ignorant about the global view of institutions like Aleh. Here is what the COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor ("the world’s only systematic international shadow monitoring report focusing on disability rights") had to say just one month ago:  

"While the institutionalization of persons with disabilities has always been a human rights abuse,[emphasis added] our survey demonstrates that the emergency measures that were implemented by governments to control the spread of COVID-19 have accelerated the pre-existing abuses of the rights of persons with disabilities in institutions. These abuses include violations of the right to life itself. For instance, persons living in smaller group homes in the USA are contracting and dying of COVID-19 at a much higher rate than the rest of the population. Institutional residents who have contracted COVID-19 were denied access to the same quality of health care that was provided to other citizens."  

I would advise her to peruse this post of mine ["The case for de-institutionalization in the COVID-19 era"] too.

In the meantime, I am still anxiously awaiting a response from the Israeli government's Ministry of Welfare's Freedom of Information section (mentioned here). I requested a break-down of the number of COVID-19 victims with disabilities according to the individual institutions.

A gala to end all galas?

Source: Israel Knesset

A recently-released Knesset report highlights the disappointing and anachronistic policies practiced by our government.

Entitled "Children with Disabilities", the succinct survey [Hebrew] was presented in May 2019 to the Knesset Committee for the Rights of Children in advance of the start of the committee's work in the 22nd Knesset.

It originated in the Knesset's Center for Research and Information.

Despite the progress achieved in this domain by most other Western countries, the report demonstrates how Israel clings to its backward ways - ways detrimental to the population they impact - toward citizens with disabilities.

As the most vulnerable in society, they and their families passively accept whatever the "powers that be" dish up.

Often it is presented to them as "the ideal" solution. Or as the embodiment of "inclusion" in the community. Or as "a real family". Among the most brazen proponents of that injustice is the largest chain of closed institutions for people with disabilities in this state, Aleh. [Those quotes can be found here, here and here in Aleh's marketing materials.]

Referring to 2017 data, the Knesset report says 2,740 children with disabilities lived in some kind of "out-of-home" arrangement. These included hostels, apartments, foster families and assisted living.

But the vast majority of them - 1,305 - were stuck in institutions a.k.a. "dormitories". Only 646 were in foster care.

On February 12, 2020, Aleh's donors will gather in Jerusalem to celebrate the policy of separating children from their parents and locking them up in large, isolated facilites. They will hear speakers laud that living solution for those who need round-the- clock assistance. They will ignore the alternative options for care that this population is entitled to and that such families receive overseas... but that are generally still unavailable in Israel.

When will Aleh's supporters remove their blinders and face the facts? Here's hoping this year's Aleh gala will be its last.

Where is the "inclusion" for Aleh's residents?

The very issue of the Jerusalem Post Magazine that featured my article, "The Special Torah" [see "My brother the rabbi and his message of inclusion"] included a classic Aleh piece courtesy of its slick PR team.

Entitled "A New Rehabilitative Path in the Negev", it describes the latest Aleh project, a

"neuro orthopedic rehabilitation hospital that will attract more people to live in the area and benefit the existing population of the Negev".

From the Jerusalem Post

I do not question that the hospital will achieve those goals. Nor that it "will be a real game changer for the southern part of Israel" as Dr. Itzhak Siev-Ner, medical director of Aleh Negev states.

By the way, another hat which Dr. Siev Ner wears, according to the piece, is director of the Division of Rehabilitation at the Health Ministry which I'm sure you'll agree screams a thunderous "conflict of interests"!

But I'll leave that outrage aside to concentrate on the repeated references in this piece to "Aleh's mission of rehabilitation and inclusion".

This amazing hospital project is being constructed on the back of an institution housing 145 residents with disabilities ranging in age from 2 months (!) to 61 years. who live detached from their families - or any foster/adoptive families - and from the rest of Israeli society.

I would appreciate some clarification as to how that is remotely akin to "inclusion".

This is probably an opportune time to also note that a five year old child died at Aleh Negev just two months ago from apparent choking on a marshmallow (see "Justice, O Justice, where art thou?").

And that a second 20 year old resident at Aleh Bnei Brak died two weeks ago after suddenly "turning blue" - according to his father - and then slipping into a three-week long coma.

The first death was reported scantily in the Hebrew press while the second was not reported at all. In neither case was an autopsy performed despite the police demand for one in the first case.

Remember: these are two recent cases that have reached me. There is no way of ascertaining whether any more such tragedies have occurred.

There is a third case, reported twenty years ago where Aleh Jerusalem's own doctor conceded there had been negligence in the supervision of the child who choked to death there. Read about it here.

My brother the rabbi and his message of inclusion

My brother receiving guests in his home on the night of the event

My post below appeared as a full-page story in this past weekend's Jerusalem Post Magazine as well as on its website [here].

I am republishing it here because I think it benefits greatly from photographs which were not included by the Jerusalem Post. I have also some hyperlinks where I think they contribute to the reader's experience.

I hope you enjoy it and would be very glad to get reader's feedback on the themes I have addressed in recounting an important event at the center of which stand my youngest brother and my nephew.

OBSERVATIONS [The Jerusalem Post Magazine | June 28, 2019]
The special Torah | A haredi rabbi’s call for inclusion

FRIMET ROTH

How is a new Torah scroll linked to people with disabilities? As one hassidic rabbi, my brother, showed, it can help shatter prejudices against them.

By proudly embracing their children with disabilities, all celebrities can further that goal. But many such parents squander that opportunity. Whether ashamed or grief-stricken, they hide their special children.

• Golda Meir never spoke publicly of her granddaughter, Meira, who had Down’s syndrome.
• Yigal Alon, IDF general, Knesset member and minister institutionalized his autistic daughter, Nurit, in Scotland and never mentioned her publicly.
• Joseph and Rose Kennedy concealed the cognitive impairment of their daughter, Rosemary, in her early years. Later, after a botched lobotomy rendered her severely disabled, they institutionalized and abandoned her.
• Playwright Arthur Miller banished his newborn Down syndrome baby and never even mentioned him in his autobiography.

So my brother’s act is noteworthy – particularly given the haredi proclivity for concealing such offspring.

At my brother's home and before the parade, the scribe (sofer) completes
the writing of the Sefer Torah

He has always embraced his cognitively impaired son, Mordechai, regularly bringing him to the synagogue over which he presides and annually to the grave of the Breslover Rebbe in Uman.

Mordechai, 29, warm and affectionate, lives with his parents and three of his 13 siblings. For six years he has been an appreciated employee in a bakery. He describes his job as “Fun!”

After work he attends group activities with similarly disabled men – singing, bike-riding, gymnastics – to which he commutes independently.

Several years ago, my brother decided to pay Mordechai a rare tribute to “compensate” for the likelihood that he will never marry. Since his needs are met by his parents, my brother encouraged Mordechai to hire a scribe, or sofer to write a new Sefer Torah. A man who cannot marry often does that, but perhaps never has someone with significant cognitive disabilities done so.

Throughout the year that the scribe wrote, Mordechai enthused over the project, visiting him regularly. Toward its conclusion, preparations were made for the traditional celebration. In Mordechai’s case, these were unusually extravagant. Fancy invitations were distributed and, my brother’s apartment building and adjacent streets were adorned with gala lights, signs and balloons.

Children leading the street parade in my brother's north Jerusalem neighborhood

On the night of the Hachnasat Sefer Torah (Welcoming of the Sefer Torah) men streamed into my brother’s apartment. There the scribe drew the outline of the final words and selected guests were honored with taking the traditional quill in hand, each filling in one letter.

Mordechai had distributed invitations to his co-workers and to sundry relatives, shopkeepers, neighbors. Thus hundreds arrived to dance and sing along the route to the synagogue, the Torah gripped by Mordechai under a huppah led by a truck sporting colored flashing lights and blaring music. Women – walking, not dancing – took up the rear.

The decorated entrance to the building where my brother's family have their apartment. Women
played a separate but distinct role in the street parade.

Inside the synagogue, the men danced for another hour while the women watched via closed circuit screening in an adjoining garage. Next, relatives and congregants were bused to a hall for a three-course meal, more dancing and my brother’s speech.

The view from the synagogue's women's section was via closed-circuit television

Shortly after my brother began, Mordechai took the microphone from him (as my brother proudly told me, “He literally grabbed it out of my hand”) and declared to the crowd, “Thank you very much Daddy and Mommy!”

Soon afterward, Mordechai again approached mid-speech and whispered to his father. “Mordechai would like me to take a break,” my brother explained to his guests, “and since this is his simcha (celebration), I will.” My brother later resumed his impassioned speech, praising Mordechai and expressing thanks for such a son.

Mordechai, in the center, mingling with guests

He criticized any concealment of such offspring, stressing that it “is not the way of the Torah,” adding, 

“Mordechai’s place of employment is privileged to have him… He is a very chaste, young man, pure-hearted, a very elevated soul. He has greatness in everything relating to interpersonal mitzvot. He avoids offending others, he flees from praise. Mordechai is always happy. He is connected to the world of music; he has special movements during music. There are things that cannot be expressed vocally and that he says with his hands. There are elevated things in children with special needs: they pick up and open a siddur, and that is called prayer. As with supremely holy ancestral tzaddikim, so, too, it is among children with disabilities; the prayer book is opened and shut and this is deemed to be true prayer.”

He thanked individuals who have been devoted to Mordechai, from various charities that assist children with disabilities to his pediatric neurologist.

My brother delivering his speech at the dinner

Afterward, “Grace After Meals” booklets were distributed along with a monograph of my brother’s selected Halachic responsa – a veritable rallying cry.

For example: 

“Many of these children exhibit heightened sensitivity toward others that surpasses the rest of the world. When they see someone crying or in distress, they rush over to show interest and share in his misery. The writer of this Sefer Torah [Mordechai] is superlative in his deeds, remembering all who need help and mentioning their names in his elevated and amazing prayers. And in his great modesty, whenever he is praised for his righteousness he replies, ‘You too,” meaning that ‘You, too, are pious, so why single me out?’”

One halachic query he answered was whether to teach adults with special needs the children’s blessing after meals. His answer: 

“Teach the adult version. Though they may be incapable of reciting it entirely and properly… the benefit is the good feeling they derive from reciting the blessing in its entirety as is required.”

Addressing opponents of placing schools for girls with disabilities within communities, he wrote, 

“They fear that frequent observing of such girls will result in impaired future offspring, a view distorted to the core. In the merit of aiding [these] children, they will be blessed with everything good.”

Already an activist at Mordechai’s bar mitzvah, he declared then, 

“I’d like to thank God for this great and hidden gift, this precious soul. It is a tremendous honor to raise a child with special needs. The Chazon Ish zt”l would rise in the presence of the parents, as well as for the children themselves, and said “The enormity of their souls is beyond our comprehension.”

I must confess that as the non-haredi mother of a profoundly disabled daughter, this aspect of his message does not resonate with me. My child exhibits no signs of spiritual or religious insight, yet I love and cherish her.

Notwithstanding, his underlying message does have general relevance, particularly in Israel where the institutionalization of children with disabilities is promoted by medical and educational professionals’ and by lavish governmental funding. The largest such enterprise, Aleh, receives more than 75% of its money from government sources and it is thriving. 

By contrast, subsidies for such children living at home are meager.

In another responsum, my brother recalled ancient Greece’s reverence for physical prowess.

“The healthy expelled the sick and elderly, abandoning them to die so that the serenity of their lives would not be disrupted.”

Sadly, remnants of that ancient Greek practice still infect our society. 

When I predicted that my brother’s act is bound to galvanize others toward change, he tempered my optimism:

“Well, not from one day to the next; perhaps it will dribble down eventually.”

He may be my little brother, but he nailed it!

A glimmer of hope through the thick smoke

From the Aleh website

The smoke is blowing fast and thick from Aleh's PR whizzes.

In the hope of blinding us to the truth - that Aleh warehouses and locks up people with disabilities in large, isolated facilities - they inundate the public with faux-uplifting stories.

From motorcycle demos to soldier visits to lipstick sessions, their residents are being trotted out for inane photo ops that mask the sad reality of their existence isolated from family and community.

Now some of that smoke is being directed my way to my Jerusalem neighborhood. We are being treated [here] to a series of free lectures on various child-care topics. Free cake and coffee is thrown in to maximize the appeal. The lecturers will, for the most part, be employees of Aleh.

These tactics are thoroughly duping Israel's politicians and government agencies. Our Minister of Education, Naftali Bennett, regularly trots off to Aleh Negev to inundate it with worshipful words: "You at Aleh are the torchbearers; you cast light on us all..."

Our Ministry of Welfare honors Aleh with awards [here] and its own hyperbolic praise of Aleh's

"world view in which the child remains an integral part of the family, and even more – ALEH is an example of a community-integrated residence..." (emphasis mine)

The greedy tentacles of this ever-expanding monster have nearly extinguished all hope for change in the lives of Israel's citizens with disabilities. But they will not succeed if we continue the struggle for genuine inclusion and equality.

As I typed the above rant, I received the following notification from Bizchut about a grass-roots campaign now underway on social media (translated by me from Hebrew to English):

"'I too deserve to be able to roam around and mess around in the big city. I want to be like you and not like a patient in a special village for people with disabilities. I want to do National Service, I want to take a trip to the Philippines or Thailand. I want a dream job. I want a relationship. That's me.' Tommy Berchanko, a youth [in Israel] with disabilities and a social activist." 

In the last month, tens of similar posts have circulated; posts relating the stories of youths with disabilities and their parents. In a short time, hundreds of people joined the struggle. People with disabilities, their parents, friends and relatives who have decided to shout out their dream, the dream of a full life within the community, with personal assistance for every individual with disabilities. All this is in accordance with the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Israel signed in 2007 and ratified in 2012. We at Bizchut bless and support all the activists and invite you to join them."

 And the group that Bizchut mentioned posted the following on its Facebook page:

"We are a group working to advance legislation that will enable people with disabilities (without distinction between types of disability) to realize their right to independent and supported lives with equality and dignity within the community in accordance with their needs and wishes and with the necessary support to achieve that."

You can read the full manifesto here.

I was particularly heartened by the phrase "without distinction between types of disability". 

Which means, Aleh, your repeated use of "complex disabilities" to denote the children locked up in your institutions just won't cut it. Even they are entitled to live within the community, with their families enjoying true inclusion. Not visits from dignitaries, donors or volunteers - the crumbs of inclusion doled out to Aleh's residents.

So, dear readers, you can now do something concrete to help Israelis with severe disabilities, particularly those consigned to live out their lives in large, closed institutions like Aleh. Join this nascent campaign to propel Israel into the ranks of other enlightened countries throughout the world.

Inclusion and institutionalization: Never the twain shall meet

Addie in Torrie Dunlap's outstanding TEDx presentation [YouTube]

You have to hand it to the PR team at Aleh. Everything it produces these days sports the terms "inclusion" and "complex disabilities", two very popular concepts in the disability arena.

With Rosh Hashana tonight, here is the introduction to an Aleh solicitation that potential donors received this holiday season:

For over 700 children with complex disabilities ALEH is a lifeline, helping them to develop far beyond their prognoses, and to be accepted and included within society.

Now, you might wonder, as I do, how inclusion and the Aleh enterprise can be mentioned in the same breath. I mean, isn't institutionalization the name of the Aleh game? And isn't institutionalization the antithesis of inclusion, the purist incarnation of exclusion that exists on earth?

So how can Israel's largest chain of warehouse-institutions for people with disabilities assert that it champions "inclusion"? [Click here for my previous posts about their work.]

Well, evidently, it can. And with ease. As long as nobody stops it. 

And droves of donors for whom Aleh is their only encounter with the world of disabilities flock to support it, unaware that they are being duped. They truly believe that Aleh embodies the lofty ideals of integration and inclusion that they so respect.

Sadly it seems they have never been exposed to speakers like Torrie Dunlap who can clearly and expertly define "inclusion" for them.

I am confident that a few minutes spent listening to this excellent speaker would straighten those well-intentioned people out. 

In this 2015 TEDx talk [the report is entitled "Why separating kids with disabilities from their peers hurts instead of helps"], for instance, she says

“I believe that a reason why, as a society, we have not embraced children with disabilities as full participants in our schools and communities is the limitation of our own mental models around disability, We have moved from hiding and institutionalizing children to a world where kids with disabilities are special and receive special services in special settings with special caregivers, and they - and their families - are disenfranchised from the community at large... ["Isn't it a pity? The real problem with special needs" via YouTube]

As you can see, even in the current post-institutionalization society of the United States and other developed countries, true inclusion is not yet a reality.

So it goes without saying that here in Israel, where such progress has not yet been achieved, inclusion for people with disabilities is a fantasy. Because, as Dunlap continues:

“When we create a separate, special place for children where their ‘special needs’ can be met, we are teaching them that their place is over there, with people like them and not in the full community.”

Dunlap related several anecdotes about children with disabilities and their treatment by teachers. She concluded her talk with this one:

I want to introduce you to my friend Addie. She’s 8 now, and in 3rd grade, but I want to tell you about her school music performances in 1st and 2nd grade. Addie uses a wheelchair and also does not use her voice to communicate. During the performance Addie sat 20 feet away from her peers, on the other side of a wall with her aide. The way she was made a part of it was by the decorations the class put on her wheelchair. So, there she is in her adorned chair far away from her peers. You can see which model is in play, right? Fast forward to 2nd grade and it’s time for a music performance. Addie has a teacher using a different mental model and this time she is on stage, next to her peers and she has a meaningful role to play in the show. They had used Addie’s recorder to capture her sister Emily’s voice saying “Thank you for coming to our performance” and after the few songs are over Addie hits a button that starts the recording. Huge beaming smile on her face. The teacher looked at the barriers and overcame them- and it wasn’t that difficult.

Dunlap is a superlative speaker and I urge you to listen to her entire talk. I have no doubt you will feel compelled as I am to convey to Aleh and its supporters this message:

"Separate is Not Equal"

and

"Institutionalization is Not Inclusion"

Shana Tova to you all!

Inclusion via institutionalization?!

A drawing of mine of a child with severe
disabilities who returns home every day after
school to the family home

I suppose for some the adage "Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes a truth" applies. But some are simply jolted by a lie anew each of those thousand times.

Count me in that crowd.

So every additional mendacious op ed, every PR release, every advertisement that Aleh spews out leaves me as livid as its first.

So it was with the recent opinion piece that the Jerusalem Post obligingly published [here] for Aleh, penned by the director of Aleh's Jerusalem institution, Shlomit Grayevsky.

It relates the timeline of Aleh's expansion over its twenty years of existence.

In 1988, Israel passed a law that focused on providing equal opportunities and experiences for all and creating integrated programming in educational settings. With the goal of promoting this ideal of equality in every aspect of life and creating a residence and treatment center that felt like a true home, ALEH... took this breakthrough and ran with it, utilizing this new legislation to pave the way for governmental participation, funding and support... ["Disability inclusion: The ultramarathon of social justice goals", Jerusalem Post, August 15, 2017]

Needless to say, living in large, closed institutions far away from their families does not afford people with disabilities anything remotely resembling "equality" with the non-disabled segment of society.

Israeli law has become much more explicit about the rights guaranteed to people with disabilities since 1988. It is now abundantly clear that the Aleh option and that of all the other institutions warehousing their residents are the antithesis of the options that Israeli law prefers.

The Equal Rights of Persons With Disabilities Law (1998) guarantees “equality to the disabled and the entitlement to make decisions relating to his life, according to his desires and priorities”.

The right to live in the community is specifically dealt with in a 2000 amendment to the Care of the Retarded Law which states that when placing individuals in facilities outside their homes, preference must be given to residences within the community.

That legislation was bolstered by the Lior Levy case (Lior Levy et al v. State of Israel et al. [2008]), in which Israel’s Supreme Court affirmed the right of even the severely disabled to be housed within community.

In 2012, Israel ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities which affirms the right of people with disabilities to live within the community, and to have ”access to a range of in-home, residential and other community support services… and to prevent isolation or segregation from the community”.

It behooves the Jerusalem Post to vet its opinion pieces for accuracy and truthfulness. To claim - as Aleh does in this piece - that its staff  "have dedicated their lives to providing quality disability care and promoting inclusion" is the height of gall. Isolating babies, children and adults from the rest of society because of their disabilities - which is what Aleh's institutions do - is nothing short of exclusion and discrimination.

For anyone who has wondered whether Aleh's  "villages" or "facilities" or "just-like-home" enterprises are in fact institutions despite Aleh's obsessive avoidance of  that word, the definition below should clear up that confusion.

According to Lumos, the respected public organization founded by JK Rowling to advocate for the rights of institutionalized children throughout the world, institutional care is defined by certain characteristics:

 • Unrelated children live in the care of paid adults • Children are separated from their family and often their community • In many cases, they do not have the opportunity to bond with a caregiver • Institutions run according to workplace routines, instead of responding to individual children’s needs  • Although some institutions are well-resourced with dedicated staff, they cannot replace a family • Eighty years of research has shown the negative impact of institutionalisation on children’s health, development and life chances, as well as a high risk of abuse [Lumos Fact Sheets]

Particularly today, when Israeli children returned to school after two months of quality time with their parents and siblings, let's remember the children who through no fault of their own were denied that enjoyment.

Throughout the summer, as they do all year long, many children with disabilities had no outings or one-on-one time with their families. They languished in locked buildings, far from their families and from the rest of society, cared for by strangers.

Misrepresenting that existence as "disability inclusion" does not magically transform it into its antithesis. It is exclusion and discrimination pure and simple.

And that's the truth.

One small step for people with disabilities - Help make it a giant leap

A Bizchut protest event [Image Source]

I'm pleased to share that my emails, phone calls and, I confess, outright nagging, finally bore fruit. I was provided a written statement by Bizchut, The Israel Human Rights Center for People with Disabilities, Israel's foremost advocacy group for that population, regarding institutionalization.

The person to whom the Bizchut CEO referred me, their lobbyist, conceded that she no longer tackles public opinion. She maintained that speaking and writing about the detriments of institutions is futile and irrelevant. Instead, she  fights solely on the legislative and judicial fronts. "That's all that matters," she insisted. Change, she emphasized repeatedly, will only grace us via meetings with Knesset committee members and, petitions to the High Court.

Writing articles is pointless, she told me and, I presume, that included blogging.

Nevertheless, I intend to continue pursuing those routes. For me, the power of the pen (or the clout of the keyboard?) endures. As long as the plague of institutionalization not only persists but thrives, as long as our government generously funds those institutions and as long as public relations for institutions inundates the web -  anti-institutionalization writing can play a role.

Below is the statement which the Bizchut lobbyist sent me. (It came in Hebrew; the translation to English is mine.) She gave me carte blanche to circulate it and I urge you readers to do the same.

Every framework that contains a group of over six residents with disabilities living together, receiving all services (recreational, meals, health, work) in one place with no real contact with or full integration into the community, is an institution. 

Thus, hostels with 24 residents with disabilities are institutions. And certainly Aleh and all the other frameworks housing hundreds of residents with disabilities together in a closed place where they receive all their services is an institution.  

Bizchut's position is that integration into the community must be natural not contrived. Occasionally bringing in volunteers for chance, once-off visits or for structured encounters with the institution's residents is not integration.  

Integration is the inclusion of a person with disabilities in the fabric of normal life within the community and the getting of services in the same manner that the general population gets them in the community. Anything that does not fit this description is, by definition, an institution. 

Who may live within the community? Bizchut's position is that every person with every kind of disability and at every level of functioning is entitled to live within the community. 

Even people who function on a very low level have the right to live within the community. It is a basic right of theirs. Society must provide them full support to enable them to fulfill/realize that right safely and optimally. 

This includes people with significant physical and cognitive disabilities who need a great deal of assistance in all realms of daily life.

Amen.

And for a change: The good

Source: New Yorker

My husband and I are both lawyers (though, in my own defense, I've never practiced).

This week, we can be proud of our profession, at least here in Israel.

Israel's Bar Association has just emailed its members urging them to hire people with disabilities. .

Here is my translation of its call to action:

The Israel Bar Association considers itself an integral part of Israeli society. In the framework of this outlook on life, we believe in the importance of the integration of people with disabilities in the workplace. We urge you, independent lawyers, to participate and absorb people with disabilities in your offices. We are certain that this significant step will lead to equal opportunities for everyone, everywhere.

Here's hoping that a ripple effect of this action will reach our backward government which still promotes the segregation and institutionalization of people with disabilities.

For some background, you might want to look at some of my recent posts:

• On prizes for caring for special children
• The Israel Prize: More about the strange choice of recipient
• Institutionalization: Why Does Israel Continue to Be Infatuated With This Cruel and Archaic Approach?
• Israel is in love with institutions
• The Ruderman Foundation: Friend or foe?