Israel Becoming More Accessible to Those with Disabilities
JNF-USA has built and supported residential services for the severely disabled, investing in making Israel accessible to all.
You may be surprised to learn Golda Meir had a granddaughter with Down syndrome. Special needs were not openly discussed when Meir was Israel’s prime minister.
She’d be pleased with the progress Jewish National Fund has made for people with disabilities in Israel. In recent years, JNF-USA has built and supported residential services for the severely disabled, invested in making Israel accessible to all, and expanded a program incorporating 350 youth with disabilities into the Israel Defense Forces.
Just a few months ago, Yair Lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid party, who some believe will be the next prime minister, spoke proudly about his autistic daughter having served in the IDF Special in Uniform program in Israel that JNF supports.
“It builds their self-esteem and gives them a feeling of belonging. It gives them hope that they will be able to get a paycheck and be a part of society,” said Yossi Kahana, director of JNF’s Task Force on Disabilities in New York, visiting Atlanta last week to meet with donors and strengthen ties with Israel.
The JNF-funded LOTEM-Making Nature Accessible is on an ecological farm next to the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s sister city of Yokneam-Megiddo in the Emek HaShalom Nature Park.
People with special needs can grind seeds into wheat to make pita bread or use an olive press designed for them to turn olives into oil or grapes into juice, said Kahana, who is originally from Israel and recently returned to celebrate his 13-year-old autistic son’s bar mitzvah at the Western Wall.
Aligning with JNF’s mission to build affordable homes in the Negev, the first phase of a housing and rehabilitation facility for disabled youth that began in 2003 and opened four years later is now fully operational, Kahana said.
The ALEH Negev-Nahalat Eran Rehabilitation Village is a 25-acre facility designed for children and young adults with a variety of acute cognitive and physical impairments and brain injuries. The rehabilitation facility, designed to foster independence, houses more than 150 residents and provides outpatient therapy to another 1,000, he said. It is a major employer and a resource for the surrounding community.
A rehab hospital is being built and should be complete in three years to serve the entire region, Kahana said.
About 420 caregivers, nurses, doctors, therapists, chefs and other service staff work in the village, along with 400 volunteers. Close to 1,000 employees will work there once the hospital is complete, he said.
In the past, a home for people with disabilities wouldn’t be surrounded by a larger, able-bodied community, Kahana said. “The government decided to build nearby. It shows Israel society is more inclusive and does not ignore people with disabilities. They accept and move next door.”
Two of the JNF disability programs in Israel have Atlanta connections. Roni Wolk is chair of LOTEM’s task force, and her husband, Alan, is U.S. chair of the board of governors of Special in Uniform. “Alan and I believe strongly in the statement that: ‘Society is measured by how it treats the weakest among us,’” Roni Wolk said.
Several Atlanta Jewish donors also have invested in the JNF disabilities programs in Israel. There’s an Atlanta Forest in LOTEM and an Atlanta Garden that hopes to strengthen a connection with Yokneam-Maggido.
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