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25 years of the ADA: Time for celebration, recommitment

I remember watching the televised newscast of President George H. W. Bush signing the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) into law on July 26, 1990, thinking it was a “nice” law but couldn’t imagine that I would ever be much impacted by its passage.
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August 12, 2015

I remember watching the televised newscast of President George H. W. Bush signing the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) into law on July 26, 1990, thinking it was a “nice” law but couldn’t imagine that I would ever be much impacted by its passage. Only a few years later, when our second child was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, did I begin to realize how important that law was going to be in my family’s everyday life. Without curb cuts, elevators and larger restrooms designed for people with disabilities (with space for a caregiver), our lives with a young adult who uses a walker would be much more curtailed. 

Although most people equate the ADA with blue-colored signs marking parking spaces for the disabled, as well as ramps and alternative points of access, the law is actually far more wide-reaching in both its intention and implementation. The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including the workplace, schools, transportation, and all public and privately owned places open to the general public. Advocates wanted to create a true “equal playing field” in physical spaces and also with public attitudes, for the more than 50 million Americans who have a disability. As a group, they’re the nation’s largest minority.

National nonprofit RespectAbility, created by Jewish activist Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, is working for full inclusion of Jews with disabilities and their families, recognizing that although much has changed for the better in the past quarter of a century, many Jews with disabilities are still excluded and denied access to Jewish life and careers because of their disabilities. This also holds true for other religious groups, because, as Mizrahi pointed out, the ADA specifically exempted religious institutions from the law if they do not accept federal money or federal services. This exemption is still true today, so synagogues, churches, mosques and other religious organizations have no legal obligation to serve or employ people with disabilities. In the employment arena, in contrast, new federal law requires all federal contractors to set a goal of hiring a minimum of 7 percent of employees with disabilities.

Although there are many positive exceptions of inclusion in the Los Angeles Jewish community, there are still many older synagogues and Jewish facilities in town that are physically inaccessible to people using wheelchairs or other assistive devices. Having prayer books available in Braille or using an American Sign Language interpreter can open up services to those with visual or hearing impairments. I find it especially sad when the bimah, the traditional raised area in the synagogue on which stands the desk from which the Torah is read, is not easily accessible to congregants or visitors, literally keeping people with physical disabilities from being called to the Torah for the honor of an aliyah, or blessing before and after the weekly reading.

Exclusion can also take place even without physical barriers. I have heard and read many stories of families who stopped attending synagogue or church because other congregants gave them the “stink eye” when the child or adult relative with a not-immediately identifiable disability such as autism made noise, flapped their arms or otherwise behaved in unconventional ways. Even without nasty glances during religious services or rituals, congregants can feel isolated and left out when, as a result of behavioral differences, they aren’t included in more informal social gatherings.

Jews with disabilities don’t always want to be on the receiving end of well-intentioned “mitzvah projects” — they want to be seen as people of value who are capable of giving, as well. There are some great models for helping adults with disabilities contribute to the community from the Ruderman Family Foundation Opportunity Initiative, which partners with the Jewish Federations of North America to create paid internships for adults with disabilities around the country, including our Los Angeles Federation, and RespectAbility’s summer service program at the Washington, D.C., JCC, where teens with disabilities work alongside their same-age peers without disabilities to complete service projects.

In a larger sense, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the ADA and pushing our religious organizations to do more to promote inclusion of all people with disabilities isn’t just a “nice” thing to do — it may very well be in our own self-interest.

In the words of Ed Roberts, who contracted polio at age 14, was the first student with severe disabilities to attend UC Berkeley and is often called the “father” of the disability rights movement: “As we get older, we realize that disability is just a part of life. Anyone can join our group at any point in life. In this way, the disability rights movement doesn’t discriminate. So, [as] those of us who are temporarily able bodied and working for access and accommodations now get older, the changes they make will benefit them as well.”

Happy anniversary, Americans With Disabilities Act! 

Michelle K. Wolf writes a monthly column for the Jewish Journal. Visit her Jews and Special Needs blog at jewishjournal.com/jews_and_special_needs.

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