Tagged special needs

Caring for a child or young adult with physical or mental challenges means negotiating a world geared primarily for a differently-abled majority. So where do you start in locating a therapist, a school for a child with learning disabilities, a supervised social environment, or simply a salon to give… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center will conduct a study about the service needs and challenges faced by families in the Jewish community who are caring for a young or adult child with special needs, including vision, movement, thinking, remembering, learning, communicating, hearing, mental health and social relationship disabilities. The… Read more »

Mark Frederick (left) and Brandon Katz participate in a weekly art class at the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Taglit program. (Photo: Travis Fischer)

Participants in the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Taglit program for young adults have a wide range of disabilities, both cognitive and physical. Still, the special needs program offers an extensive schedule of daily activities for the program’s 20 full-time participants, ages 19 to 35. Whether it’s yoga, karate, fitness… Read more »

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jewish identity and connection are the birthright of every Jew. So why do so many Jewish institutions discriminate against Jews with disabilities? It keeps happening because we let it happen. We make excuses by saying there isn’t enough support or enough dollars, or because we value… Read more »

Alexis Sokoloff holds the Torah at her Bat Mitzvah ceremony (Courtesy Gwen Sokolof)

Fourteen-year-old Alexis Sokoloff smiles as she recalls her Bat Mitzvah on June 9. “I wasn’t nervous at all,” she told the AJP. “I really love learning Hebrew.” Sokoloff was born with Down syndrome, but with the support of her parents, Gwen and Mitchell Sokoloff, and her younger sister, Rebecka,… Read more »

Canoers in the Tikvah program at Camp Ramah in Palmer, Mass., which accommodates youngsters with special needs. (Camp Ramah)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — Solomon Krishef was thrilled to learn that this summer he could go to his Jewish sleepaway camp for eight weeks — twice as long as the previous four summers. It was not to be for the Michigan teenager. Ultimately the blind almost 16-year-old was told he… Read more »

Birthright Israel staff member Jeremy Lichtman, left, with Tucsonan Peter Ruiz at the Western Wall

It wasn’t easy for 24-year-old Peter Ruiz to venture to Israel with other young adults, but it was more difficult for him to leave. Ruiz, who has cerebral palsy, toured Israel from June 13 to 23 on a Taglit- Birthright Israel trip. His parents, Berna­dette and Joaquin Ruiz, were… Read more »