Four New York men, including a rabbi, were indicted for allegedly stealing more than $12.4 million in funding intended for children with disabilities. Rabbi Samuel Hiller, 56, of Far Rockaway in the borough of Queens, was indicted on grand larceny and other charges, according to a news release issued Tuesday by Queens County District Attorney…
My grandchild with special needs failed Sunday school. Actually, to be accurate, Sunday school failed her. Because the teacher had no idea how to include her in the class, even after her mother shared some ideas, she spent most of her time coloring with a teen volunteer. She was “welcome,” but only in the sense…
(JTA) — In the coming months, six young Jews with disabilities will start paid internships at major Jewish federations through a pilot program. If successful, the program will expand to communities throughout North America. In the fall, Manhattan’s first Jewish day school for children with special needs will open. Meanwhile, the Foundation for Jewish Camp…
Jewish activists from 12 states and the District of Columbia lobbied Congress to liberalize rules for government assistance for the disabled. The fourth annual Jewish Disability Advocacy Day on Thursday, sponsored by The Jewish Federations of North America and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, stressed the importance of passing the Achieving A Better…
A few years ago, Chava Willig Levy went to a concert at Carnegie Hall. Having contracted polio at the age of 3, the 62-year-old lecturer and writer uses a motorized wheelchair. “Let the wheelchair pass,” a man a few steps in front of Levy and her friend said to his companion, as the former two…
When Eric Rosenthal, 49, won this year’s Charles Bronfman Prize, which recognizes the work of Jewish humanitarians under 50, he was stupefied, and not just because it came with a $100,000 stipend. “I never really brought my personal and professional life into such close connection,” he told the Forward in July. “The idea that this…
The Israel Sports Association for the Disabled banned a table tennis player from representing Israel for two years, saying that she played in a tournament last Yom Kippur. Yael Elbag, in her fifties, was accused of participating in a doubles match on the Day of Atonement, thus ignoring a Culture and Sports Ministry directive banning…
My father saw his older brother, David, only once in his life. He was 10 years old, and David, then 13, was living at the Willowbrook State School for the intellectually disabled in Staten Island. This brief visit occurred shortly before my grandfather’s military career took his family overseas for several years. Maybe the visit…
100% of profits support our journalism
