Big Tent Judaism

Opening Our Tent for the Hearing Impaired

At most synagogues in Italy, the rabbi’s sermon and announcements are delivered in Italian. In Uruguay, they are delivered in Spanish. And in America, English is the language most often heard, yet there is one group of Jews who feel disconnected from the community because they are unable to participate in services and other Jewish activities in their own language – I am referring to those who speak American Sign Language.

Deaf Jews are often marginalized from the Jewish community because few services and other programming use American Sign Language and/or translators. Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in greater Washington D.C. plans to address the need to include all Jews in their community through their Jewish Deaf Congregational Initiative. According to the Washington Jewish Week, the initiative would create a deaf congregation housed in Adat Shalom and in partnership with the Washington Society of Jewish Deaf, the Jewish Deaf Resource Center and the Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning. The Jewish Week Reports that:

The deaf congregation envisioned in the grant application would incorporate an array of fully accessible programs focusing on Judaic education, religious services, life-cycle events and joint activities involving Adat Shalom’s hearing congregants. The education component, for example, would include b’nai mitzvah training for deaf teens and adults, intergenerational Torah study and instruction on how to incorporate Jewish practices into the home. Under joint programming efforts, hearing congregants would be offered deaf-culture classes and instruction in American Sign Language (ASL), the dominant form of communication in the United States deaf community and several others worldwide. Hearing congregants would also be invited to ASL-only services and would celebrate “select joint holidays” with deaf congregants.

We congratulate the Jewish Deaf Congregational Initiative partner organization for exemplifying the principles of our Big Tent Judaism coalition. We hope that the Jewish community takes their example to develop more initiatives that welcome and include all who wish to engage with and learn about the Jewish community, and we invite those organizations to join the Big Tent Judaism Coalition.

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