Update June 17, 2018 link to 2004 report "Checkpoints a Counterview" added for reading the whole report in addition to screen grab in post below.
Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM) can be problematic if the world view, on final status Israeli-Palestinian and regional peace, of the people leading the organization promoting JDAIM is not based on civil legal equality for all people under law. Civil, and criminal, law can be informed in its development by religion as what was known as interfaith community consensus that has been replaced with interfaith supremacy wars in the ‘interesting times’ of late 20th and 21st century economic, technological and climate change and how humanity has adapted at a pace with savagely unequal outcomes at nation, state, local and individual levels.
There is too much complexity, for most fair-minded and kind people to embrace, of inclusion when participation of people with disabilities is facilitated in activities that include social action and advocacy to support $3.8 Billion per year in USA military aid from 2017-27 (up from $3.1 Billion per year from 2007-17) to a nation-state government that increasingly tries to justify exclusion with security including exclusion of Palestinians who are sick and disabled.
Note the title in image below, from a past version of RespectAbilityUSA web site, entitled "Enhanced Jewish Continuity and Pro-Israel Activism Through Inclusion of Jews with Disabilities."
In case the link no longer works another copy and paste of content that loaded when I retrieved it around 2014 or 2015 follows.
Enhanced Jewish Continuity and Pro-Israel Activism Through Inclusion of Jews with Disabilities
RespectAbility’s leaders want Jews and Israel to not only survive, but also to thrive. There are many great organizations doing pure pro-Israel and Jewish engagement work. However, their work is made much harder because real dangers exist — and they are not only anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and enemies of Israel. Indeed, despite ongoing, intense and often expensive efforts to encourage Jewish identity and engagement, there is an unfortunate reality within our community that is dampening these efforts – the exclusion of Jews with disabilities.
When Jews with a disability are told they are not welcome, the Jewish community risks losing their loved ones as well.
By denying full access to Jewish and pro-Israel life and activities for Jews with disabilities, we potentially lose the participation and talents of tens of thousands of Jews with disabilities and those who love them. Thankfully, however, it is a problem that we can easily start to address.
Many Jews are simply unaware that ongoing discrimination is happening inside our tent or, if they are aware, either do not understand the value of this kind of inclusion or do not know how to become more inclusive. Through a new public service awareness and educational campaign, Respectability will enhance Jewish continuity by changing perceptions and practices within the Jewish community so that Jews with disabilities can experience full and equal participation in Jewish life and pro-Israel activities. This in turn will make us stronger in all these efforts.
Project Goals:
1) To educate Jewish institutions and leaders on the “how-to’s” for full and respectful inclusion of Jews with disabilities in Jewish life.
2) To enable our community to live up to Jewish values of social justice and equality, while enhancing Jewish engagement and survival
3) To end the harsh prejudices of pity and low expectations that deny Jews with disabilities their equal and rightful place in our community.
4) To expand participation in Jewish and pro-Israel activities by Jews with disabilities and those who care about them.
Population served and problem addressed:
According to the U.S. Census, 18.6% of Americans have a disability. This includes 13% of public school children.[1] Given that there are 5.3 million Jews in America, this means that there are at least 985,500 Jews with disabilities. However, as Jews carry genetic risks[2] and on average have children later in life than any other demographic group[3] it is likely that we have more disabilities per capita than others, including higher rates of Autism, mental health and other issues linked to parental age.
Sadly, however, time and again in the Jewish community, we shut our doors to people with disabilities. The discrimination is frequently intentional as Jews overall are deeply committed to social justice. Indeed, fully 89% of Jews polled by RespectAbility with Jerusalem University strongly agree that, “Jewish events and organizations should be as welcoming and inclusive of people with disabilities as everyone else.” However, as a community and as individuals we are like the son from Seder who does not even know what to ask so that positive change can happen! The same poll indicated that people with disabilities are dramatically under-represented within the ranks of engaged Jews, with 20% of Jews indicating that they were unable to participate in Jewish life because of their disability.
Another nationwide poll fielded by RespectAbility of more than 3,800 Americans in the disability community (half people with disabilities, half family members and providers to people with disabilities) shows that Jews with disabilities are far less engaged in Jewish life than are their counterparts from the Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical faiths. Indeed, more Jews with disabilities say they “do not attend services” than any other religious group polled.[4] Another survey from the Foundation for Jewish Camp (undertaken together with RespectAbility) demonstrated that there are Jewish children who are being turned away and denied access to Jewish life based solely on their disabilities.[5]
2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Religious institutions are exempt from this law if they do not accept Federal money or services and still today have no legal obligation to serve or employ people with disabilities. Unfortunately, this “pass” has hindered the implementation of simple accommodations such as accessible doors and ramps and attitude changes to enable people with disabilities to participate in religious services and programs. We believe that this discrimination is denying the basic human and religious rights of thousands of American Jews with disabilities. It also deprives our community of the many gifts that Jews with disabilities offer. While there are laudable exceptions, overall our community’s practice is not reflective of its inclusive laws and values.
This project will be an important step to change this situation. American society in general still focuses on, and accommodates for, what people with disabilities cannot do rather than what they are able to achieve. Research has demonstrated that we often see people with disabilities as incapable,[6] and we have found in our own work that well-meaning people fail to promote inclusion primarily because they don’t really understand that there is a need or they believe that addressing the need would be cost and time prohibitive. Changing these perceptions of cost, incapability, and lack of need, all of which are false, is key to making the Jewish community, particularly our schools, truly inclusive.
Project description:
RespectAbility’s staff are experts in strategic communications – a methodology that has been successfully used to change hearts and minds on many different issues. Our goal is to understand public attitudes towards people with disabilities – and determine how to change attitudes and the
accompanying narrative.
We will first launch a nationwide contest to find effective visual images and ad concepts from which we can develop public service ads and other promotional materials proven to impact people’s opinions. We will use our extensive connections to advertise for submissions throughout the Jewish community including all religious branches, the federation and JCC systems, Jewish camps, day schools, and others, as well as online and through our social media network. Winners will receive cash prizes.
The best submissions will then be tested in focus groups and an online poll of Jews. Participants in the focus groups will be questioned to determine their current attitudinal barriers to inclusion then asked to react to the visual images. We will choose multiple locations with different demographics and community dynamics for the focus groups in order to determine which materials are most effective within a variety of communities.
Using the findings from this research, RespectAbility will develop a series of effective PSAs with specific messaging that can be used in flyers, newsletters and posters. These materials will be distributed free of charge to Jewish schools, synagogues, and organizations across the country and will include royalty free photos of Jews with a variety of disabilities succeeding in inclusive Jewish settings. All materials will be available to download for free from RespectAbility’s website. We expect the campaign to be used by more than two-dozen Jewish organizations and to be covered widely in the Jewish media.
About Us:
RespectAbility was founded by its president, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, and chair, Donn Weinberg, both of whom are heavily involved and invested in the Jewish community. We have filed our own 501C3, but while we await IRS approval RespectAbility is a project of the Autism Society.
RespectAbility currently collaborates widely with dozens of Jewish groups and synagogues from every religious branch. Our team has completed three polls on inclusion and our president has published more than two-dozen pieces in Jewish publications on inclusion, many of them “how-to” in scope. The focus groups in this project will be developed and managed by Meagan Buren, a strategist and public opinion research expert with deep experience in the Jewish and pro-Israel community.
RespectAbility has 22,000 email followers and provides PR for Jewish groups working on the inclusion issue including ReelAbilities – the largest U.S. film festival dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the artistic expression of people with disabilities. In 2013 RespectAbility led a group of DC-area Jewish children with disabilities to build a succah at Vice President, Joe Biden’s official residence. In 2014 we created collaboration between the White House and Israel’s blind-deaf ensemble and we enabled the Foundation for Jewish Group Homes to lead a national webinar on employment. We have also provided two major training programs on inclusion in the Jewish community through funding from the Mizrahi Family Charitable Trust, and we are currently working to create a national gathering of Jewish adults with disabilities themselves.
We are also deeply involved with non-Jewish disability groups. We are active in the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (C-C-D.org) and are deeply engaged in the work of Gov. Jack Markell, immediate past Chair of the National Governors Association, who is himself Jewish. We are now connected to 32 Governors with our work on disability issues, and have been able to include Jewish groups in our work with Governors Cuomo, Christie and others.
The research and materials RespectAbility is seeking to develop are critical to advancing inclusion of Jews with disabilities in Jewish life. To be truly welcoming to all Jews the Jewish community, our synagogues, organizations, and businesses must include, accept, and support individuals with disabilities and their friends and families. We can come to learn the true meaning of humanity and understand that, though everyone is different, all people were created in the image of G-d, “b’tselem Elokim bara oto.” These materials will help to break down the barriers and stereotypes held by our children, friends, and neighbors which are preventing inclusion. This work will positively impact thousands of Jews with disabilities, especially children, and help to prevent them and their families from abandoning the Jewish community and their Jewish identity.
For more information, contact Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi at: [professional contact information redacted]
[1] http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp
[2] https://www.jewishgenetics.org/ashkenazi-genetic-traits
and https://www.jewishgenetics.org/sephardic-genetic-traits
[3] http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=46437
[4] http://respectabilityusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/jerusalem-u-pp.pdf/
[5]http://www.jewishcamp.org/sites/default/files/u4/Jewish%20Camp%20for%20Children%20with%20Disabilities%20and%20Special%20Needs%20-%20Full%20Survey%20Findings.pdf
[6]http://www.relationalcapitalgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Warmth-Competence-2007.pdf
This goal is what makes the entire paper problematic by exploiting inclusion of Jews with disabilities to support exclusion for security of the state of Israel.
4) To expand participation in Jewish and pro-Israel activities by Jews with disabilities and those who care about them.
All ambulances being stopped and searched because of allegations of even one ambulance carrying weapons debunked here is not justified as stated in the 2004 Machsomwatch report, "Checkpoints: A Counterview" page 44.
5 pregnant women and 35 babies have died in checkpoint delays in 2017 and 2018 as the COGAT of the IDF is still collectively punishing the many, for the acts of a few bombers and stabbers, unrepresentative of Palestinians as a whole ethnic/religious and national community.
Movement restrictions and waiting times for cancer treatment
are not justified either even with one alleged suicide bombing attempt at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.
Camera. org cited the bombing attempt as one of their anecdotes to ‘weaponize’ into outrage by their members’ emails and phone calls.
Another group started by a camera member with money managed by camera’s treasurer since 1994 called for the BDS tactic of subscription cancellations or holds in 2002 and advertiser boycotts in 2007 and 2008.
Retrieved around 2011 or 2012 from this link, dead in 2018, please bear with another long copy and paste of what was previously posted.
http://mideasttruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7644&view=next&sid=8c788be9c2c310d9c722f6e013c3ef49
From: "EyeOnThePost, Inc." <info>
Subject: Announcement of Post Advertisers Campaign - Article in Washington Jewish Week
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:35:50 -0500
Dear Friends:
Eye On The Post is pleased to announce the inauguration of a campaign to contact and educate Washington Post advertisers about the unbalanced, unfair and often misleading reporting of the Washington Post on matters pertaining to Israel. We've already been in touch with several hundred Washington Post advertisers, and we will be continuing this dialogue into the indefinite future.
We placed two display ads in the Washington Jewish Week during the last week of December, 2007. One of the ads pointed to two recent biased reports in the Washington Post within a five day period of time, one accusing Israel of racism toward its Arab citizens ( For Israel's Arab Citizens, Isolation and Exclusion, 12-20-07, A01) and the other of reducing Palestinians in Gaza to beggar status. ( Sealed Off By Israel, Gaza Reduced To Beggary, Saturday, December 15, 2007; Page A01). Our analyses of these two articles can be viewed on our web site at http://www.eyeonthepost.org.
The other display ad announced the inauguration of our campaign to educate advertisers.
The following week the Washington Jewish Week published an excellent news article about our campaign on page 3, which you can read below.
The Post's reputation worldwide as a quality and trustworthy news source should be questioned. Good writing alone doesn't equate to quality journalism. The Post's writers and editors routinely misrepresent and distort news on Israel in order to advance their personal opinion and agenda. The efforts noted above are directed primarily to the Post's immediate subscriber area in metropolitan Washington, DC, but as we've indicated before, we send these "Alerts" to tens of thousands of interested readers throughout the world. The Washington Post is a leader among the world's media, and although it is not alone in pursuing a slanted agenda in reporting on Israel, other papers follow its lead. Please help us to spread this message by forwarding it to all of your acquaintances who are concerned about the damage being done to Israel's reputation. And if you know someone who is responsible for the placement of advertising in the Washington Post, please educate him/her.
*************************
WASHINGTON JEWISH WEEK
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
All The News That's Unfit?
Local Watchdog Slams Post's Coverage Of Israel
Wednesday, January 02, 2008, Page 03
by Richard Greenberg
Associate Editor
A local media watchdog group has launched a campaign to "educate" companies that advertise in The Washington Post about what it contends is the newspaper's "unfair and unbalanced" coverage of Israel.
During the past few weeks, the organization Eye On The Post has contacted "several hundred" Post advertisers and informed them that the newspaper's coverage of Middle Eastern events is "regularly biased" in that it misrepresents Israel as a "belligerent, mean-spirited and racist" country whose often valid reasons for taking action against its foes are rarely mentioned, according to Robert Samet, who chairs the group.
"We want readers to know what they get when they buy the Post, and the same goes for those who use the Post for advertising," said Samet, 56, an attorney who lives in Potomac. "What they do with that information is their own decision."
Samet, who declined to name any of the advertisers contacted, emphasized that none of them was threatened with a boycott nor was anyone pressured into advertising elsewhere. "But they certainly have the option of contacting the Post and telling them that the coverage is unfair," he added.
The Post was contacted regarding the campaign, but did not comment.
As part of its campaign, Eye On The Post placed two ads in last week's WJW, one of which announced the initiative and urged readers to support it by contacting a Post advertiser and discussing the newspaper's Middle East reporting. The other ad headlined "The Washington Post Is An Enemy Of Israel" focused on two recent Israel-related front-page stories that were "particularly egregious" in their negative and one-sided depiction of the Jewish state, according to Samet. Both were written by Scott Wilson, The Washington Post's Jerusalem bureau chief.
One story, which appeared on Dec. 15, stated that Israel's "punishing" restriction of imports into the Gaza Strip has reduced the territory "to beggar status."
The other story, which appeared Dec. 20, said that Israel discriminates against its Arab citizens in a process that "mirrors in many ways the broader one taking place between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories."
The ad attacking those stories said the Post "doesn't tell its readers" many relevant and newsworthy things, including that economic sanctions have been imposed on Gaza because Gaza is the source of continuing rocket strikes against Israel and that the charter of Hamas, which now governs Gaza, "explicitly calls for the violent destruction of Israel."
Some of the same points were made in a recent rebuttal of the two articles by CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), which said in a recent e-mailing that the two cited stories "reconfirmed the paper's narrow, misleading perspective on Arab-Israeli news."
The Dec. 20 article, according to CAMERA, included "basic factual errors," such as the assertion that Israeli Arabs are "excluded" from serving in the Israeli military. Instead, they are not required to serve "as most Israeli Jews are," CAMERA stated. "No law stops them from volunteering."
In addition, Wilson mistakenly wrote that Israeli Jews outnumber Israeli Arabs five to one, whereas the correct ratio is "about four to one," according to CAMERA, which noted that "Israeli Arabs enjoy the same legal rights, if not economic and social standing, as Israeli Jews."
Eye On The Post was formed in April 2002 in the wake of the Post's "false reporting of a massacre in Jenin [in the West Bank]" by the Israeli military following a deadly Passover bombing in Israel, according to the organization's Web site.
Prior to the current campaign, the group's activities have consisted mainly of conducting speakers' forums, analyzing Post articles and e-mailing media alerts to members of its mailing list that note the publication of new and allegedly problematic articles.
Shortly after the organization was founded, it called on readers to stop buying the newspaper for one week. Although the results of that campaign were difficult to gauge, Samet said: "I think we got our message across."
2 buses from the Jewish Council for the Aging were used to transport people to Farragut Square July 17, 2014 from Clubhouse #2 at Leisure World and the Jefferson St side of Federal Plaza shopping center (note first of 3 images of a JCRC email) to support Israel’s army IDF using whatever level of discretion in their use of force that they wished as self-defense during the Protective Edge war.
The July 17, 2014 pro-war rally was organized by nonprofit organizations and used vehicles operated by a nonprofit JCA (Jewish Council for the Aging), as a privatized supplement to MetroAccess door to door paratransit, was not ‘political’ under 501(c)3 regulations, again, as no statements to ‘vote for or against’ candidates or legislation were made.
Terms of JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Council public policy -lobbying- arm of the Greater Washington Jewish Federation) relationship-building with candidates or public officials appearing including Isaiah Leggett D-Montgomery County Executive, (reelection year), Sen Ted (Rafael) Cruz R-TX, and Congressmember Brad Sherman D-CA had unstated, and thus plausibly deniable, expectation of electoral support of rally attendees for speaking.
2018 is another mid-presidential term election year, like 2014 and 2006 were, with a motivated electoral base particularly on the Democratic-leaning party ‘side’ of the aisle between where legislators of different parties desks are on the ‘floor’ of the USA House of Representatives and Senate chambers. State capitols often replicate the party-segregated seating arrangements. The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, from Tel Aviv, has provoked much resistance mostly nonviolent, with a few exceptions, responded to with disproportionate levels of armed force to silence the mostly nonviolent resistance. Those exceptions should not drive Israeli policy perhaps leading to the start of the fourth war on Gaza since 2006, perhaps supported with another rally, since Israel evicted settlers from their illegal settlements while giving Palestinians little opportunity for trade with much greater freedom of movement than they have given since September 2005 and particularly since June 2007.
A good model for IL (independent living) assistance services, to include people with disabilities, has already been created with funding help from the Claims Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany called Self Help Services.
Self Help Services operational model should be replicated under regulations of the Disability Integration Act of 2017 (if it is ever passed even in a future Congress with a future President's signature) v. 3.0 of the MiCassa (based on the 1999 Olmstead vs LC and EW Supreme Court decision) with federal, state and local funding to finally overcome the Medicaid institutional bias toward funding LTSS (long term services and supports) in nursing homes (RTC = residential treatment center) instead of real homes HCBS (home and community based settings) in communities chosen by individuals with disabilities. Medicaid, with adequate annual budget increases to retain providers and not regressively impoverish beneficiaries with draconian means tests, would be a more sustainable funding basis than private philanthropy that proves, and collects, claims for harm from Germany.
