The Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Taglit day program for young adults with developmental disabilities is flourishing, with 41 participants and a substantial waiting list. Taglit also has a summer camp program for middle and high school youth with disabilities, which served 24 campers in 2024. The Tucson J’s day camp, Camp J, also has an inclusion program for rising kindergarteners through fifth graders.
The Taglit day program includes two tracks, Avodah (Hebrew for vocation/service) and Ha-Ash-Arah (Hebrew for enrichment), “which help to create individual and group programming that supports each participant’s interests and abilities,” says Charlie Paige, the J’s senior director of disability program services.
The program has seen remarkable growth over the past decade, says Todd Rockoff, president and CEO of the J.
“As we completed the construction of the Weinberg Wing on the second floor in 2015, we hoped Taglit would be able to grow from 12 to 24 participants. Here we sit with the program at 41 participants,” Rockoff says, adding that since Taglit operates in an inclusive environment, “the entire community benefits from Taglit’s presence.”
It all started with a few Jewish mothers who wanted their kids with disabilities to be able to attend the same day camp programs as their siblings. In 1993, the J’s early childhood education camp set up a two-week trial for one child.
But the seed had been planted even earlier. Nancy Finkelstein’s son, Collin, who was born with developmental and motor disabilities, had attended the ECE preschool as an infant. Finkelstein remembers the day the ECE director, the late Jill Rosenzweig, told her Collin could not remain at the preschool because the program couldn’t meet his needs.
“I think it broke Jill’s heart when she had to tell me that,” Finkelstein says.
Finkelstein enrolled Collin in other programs through Arizona’s Department of Developmental Disabilities. But Rosenzweig kept him in mind.
In 1993, Rosenzweig told Finkelstein she’d found a volunteer who could work with Collin, then age 5, at the ECE camp. With the approval of Ken Light, then president and CEO of the J, Collin attended the camp for two weeks. The trial was such a success that the next summer, Collin attended again “and he never looked back,” says Finkelstein.
Two other children with disabilities, including Sheri Karobonik’s son, Eric, attended the ECE camp in 1994. But Eric, born with Mucolipidosis type 4, a rare type of Tay-Sachs disease, would soon be too old for that program. Karobonik was told Camp J didn’t include kids with disabilities — or at least, they never had — and that they didn’t have the funds to hire a one-on-one aide for Eric.
Karobonik, who served on the parent advisory council for Arizona’s Department of Developmental Disabilities, enlisted the help of Ron Barber, then the state DDD director and later a U.S. representative.
Barber explained that the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), Arizona’s Medicaid agency, would pay for four hours per day of camp unless the child had a school district placement, in which case the school district placement would take priority. Getting past that four-hour limit at Camp J would require school district waivers plus federal and state waivers allowing families to use respite hour payments for the additional camp hours.
Karobonik suggested Finkelstein work on the Jewish community side of the issue while she tackled the bureaucratic red tape. The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona formed a committee to explore programs for children with disabilities, chaired by Shelley Pozez, who was “a huge help,” Finkelstein says.
When the committee asked Light to open the camp to kids with disabilities, Finkelstein remembers, he said, “No, we’ll open the whole facility to them.”
“His commitment to it made all the difference,” she says.
In 1995, eight children with disabilities attended camp at the J, but there was still no formal program, which meant most of them “were unable to fully utilize and engage in the camp program,” according to a grant application to hire an inclusion coordinator for Camp J.
In 1996, with the J committing matching funds, the Jewish Community Foundation approved the grant. With funding and the required waivers in place, Collin, Eric, and other kids could fully participate in Camp J.
Karobonik remembers that some parents of kids without disabilities were skeptical or downright hostile to the idea of kids with disabilities at camp. She and Finkelstein served on the camp committee “to make sure our children had a voice. We figured if we weren’t in the room, we would have been kicked out -— in the beginning that was probably true.”
Early on, everyone agreed to a 10 percent cap for campers with disabilities so the ratio of the inclusion program to camp overall would be successful.
“The kids actually adapted better than the parents,” Karobonik says. “Something that we expected that the other parents didn’t expect is that the kids started gravitating toward our kids, especially at events like ice skating.”
One example she recalls is that children learning to ice skate were encouraged to push Eric around the rink in his wheelchair, which they could use for support instead of the “baby bars.”
Aging Out
But the “aging out” issue arose again when the J’s first campers with disabilities were in high school. People with disabilities can remain in a high school program until they turn 22.
Karobonik, Finkelstein, and other parents approached Denise Wolf, then chief operating officer at the J, who had led a program for youth with disabilities at another agency.
One of those parents was Bernadette Ruiz. Her son, Peter, another longtime camp participant, was a couple of years older than Collin and Eric.
The Jewish community has welcomed Peter “with open arms,” Ruiz says, helping to foster his love of Judaism that continues to this day.
“I went to Denise and said, ‘You know, there’s nothing in the community that’s going to serve these kids once they graduate from high school. The program for camp has been so great for them, what we really need is a day program for young adults with disabilities,’” Ruiz says.
Her idea was to create a program that would allow young adults with disabilities to access all the activities in our community that add contentment, meaning, and purpose to our lives, just as the non-disabled population can. This would mean frequently exposing these young adults to opportunities for learning, socializing, and emotional growth, including making and keeping friendships. They’d have opportunities to enjoy nature, sports, music, art, dance, food, and literature, and to give back to the community.
A committee of parents, experts in the field including the director of special education at the University of Arizona, and other community members began planning a day program.
“Without Denise, it wouldn’t have happened,” Ruiz says. “She was fabulous.”
Although Peter was older, Collin was the first Taglit participant.
When Collin was 19 and a rising senior, he didn’t want to return to high school at the end of the summer, Finkelstein says. “Collin much preferred to be at the J.”
The UA expert recommended a graduate student to work with Collin in the J’s nascent program, named “Taglit,” which means “discovery” in Hebrew.
Collin had to attend his high school program for a half day every three weeks to maintain eligibility there.
“That’s how we tried it for the fall,” Finkelstein says. After the trial period, Collin was all in at Taglit.
The Taglit program was among the first of its kind in the JCC system, Rockoff says. In 2008, Taglit received an Award for Excellence in Programming from the JCC Association of North America.
In January 2009, Peter and another young adult joined Collin in the program. Eric joined them when he turned 22 and was no longer eligible for high school.
Taglit taps into “the great gifts of our community,” says Ruiz, from the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum to dance and music programs at the university. After field trips, community experts often return to the J to continue teaching Taglit participants.
Eric died in 2019, six days before his 29th birthday.
“My son just loved the Taglit program. He was always voted the most popular even though he was legally blind and nonverbal,” says Karobonik.
The Karobonik family continues a mitzvah he adored, collecting soft drink tabs for the Ronald McDonald House.
“Eric liked helping other people. He didn’t realize he was sicker than they were,” Karobonik says.
Collin, now 36, still loves spending time at the J and engaging in Taglit’s wide range of activities.
While Peter has not been part of the program since 2020, Paige says, “Bernadette and Joaquin continue to support Taglit and its participants.”
Most Taglit participants are between 20 and 40, but they won’t “age out,” Paige says.
Karobonik remains passionate about Taglit, noting that when Arts for All, a venerable Tucson nonprofit, joined the J’s disability programming in 2022, it made the J one of the biggest providers of adult day programs in the state.
Integrating the Arts for All (AFA) day program into the J’s disability program services broadened Taglit’s programming, Paige says. Taglit participants attend weekly art classes at AFA; AFA participants go to the J for art classes, regular programming, and special events. Taglit and AFA participants join each other for community outings, and Taglit and AFA staff attend in-services and trainings together at both sites and in the community.
Rockoff points to the J’s service pledge, “We create community based on Jewish values by providing the highest quality programs and services in a safe and secure environment for all people of all ages.”
“Taglit, specifically, and DPS in general, put those words into action,” he says.
February is Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month.
