Micah Brown, 18, and a senior at Cleveland High in Portland, Oregon recently resumed from a six-week trip to Israel. Brown, one of ten Deaf students at the school, speaks and signs ASL and contacted JDCC News to share his “trip of a lifetime”.
About three years ago when I was about to start my freshman year, my Dad asked if I would like to join my temple’s study group. Every week we would meet at one student’s home and discuss whatever we would be studying for that year. Admittedly, it didn’t seem that interesting until Dad told me the end result would be the students who were entering their senior year would go to Israel for the summer. I was sold on it!
In order to promote further Jewish studies for high-school students, the Oregon Board of Rabbis made an offer with all congregations in Oregon. If students would fulfill three requirements, the Board of Rabbis would pay 80 percent of the costs for a trip to Israel. These three requirements were: Attend a temple study group, amending type of religious service at least once or twice a month, and doing a minimum of 30 hours of community service per month.
My deafness made it difficult to attend services, but luckily I had access to one of the few Jewish interpreters in my state and possibly the country. This AMAZING woman, Holly Hoffnung, had a lot of experience with Havurah Shalom: She helped me develop signs for all the prayers that I signed at my Bar Mitzvah way back in March ’95. So, all it really took was a little bit of planning and a lot of commitment on both of our parts to attend services.
As the three years went by, and the date of my trip got closer and closer, I faced a new obstacle: Finding the right tour program. Only one program called Young Judaea would be willing to process my application as they would any other and not reject my application solely on my deafness. Now, the only barrier in my way was to find a qualified person who could be my interpreter. Some time later, during the middle of my junior year, Young Judaea (YJ) found a woman from Chicago who would be absolutely perfect- Hadar Danny was not only fluent in conversationalist ASL and spoken Hebrew, she was a former chanicha (camper) of YJ! Hadar and I communicated through E-mail and TTY calls in order to get to know each other as well as possible before the trip started.
Then, on June 28, 1998, I arrived at a hotel near Newark International Airport to meet Hadar and the rest of my group. My only fear at this point was whether or not the rest of the kids would accept me. These fears were erased as soon as everyone found out I knew sign language! We boarded an El-AI plane bound for Rome. After 4 days in Rome, we were going to take a three day boat ride to Halfa, Israel.
We flew into Ben Gurion Airport on a Friday afternoon, and drove to an Army recreational camp in Ashkelon, where we spent our first Shabbat. The next five and a half weeks were spent driving all over the entire country. Young Judaea’s “base camp” was at the Hadassah Youth Center in the Mt. Scopus campus of Hebrew University, Jerusalem. We stayed there quite often.
Traveling all over Israel, really made me enjoy the beauty of the country’s culture and climate. I even got a chance to experience the Deaf culture there. One weekend, I stayed with a family in Tel Aviv, who had a boy about my age who was Deaf named Shaul Gor Ziv. He knew enough ASL to make communication easy for us, and he taught me some ISL! Staying with that family and a chance meeting with a group of Deaf Israelis at Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem really made me aware of the situation of Deaf rights in that country: Israel allows Deaf citizens to join the army on a volunteer basis. However, the majority of Deaf people in the armed forces are simply trained for filing paperwork and driving the jeeps. Very few are permitted to enter combat training. Another thing I learned was that most Israeli Deaf do not have the free access to interpreters as we Americans enjoy under the ADA–in fact, Shaul’s mother had to go all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court just to get him an interpreter for school.
As I said before, we traveled all over Israel. We snorkeled in the Red Sea in Eilat; climbed Masada to see the sunrise; floated in the Dead Sea; rafted and kayaked down the river Jordan; we ate at a restaurant in Rosh Hanikra, just ten or 15 feet from the Israel- Lebanon boarder; and went to the Wailing Wall and King David’s Tower in Jerusalem. We visited David Ben Gurion’s home at Kibbutz Sde Boker, and his tomb at nearby Ben Gurion National Park. We went to Mt. Herzel, and saw the tombs of Herzel, Rabin, Golda Meir, and many fallen Israeli soldiers. We went to Yad Vashem and mourned the memory of the six million. We went to Tel Aviv and saw Rabin Square, where Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated. We went rappelling 50 meters down a natural rock arch in Keshet National Park…
We did so much, I would probably take up the entire newsletter to tell you everything. It was the most educational and spiritual summer of my entire life. At.the beginning of the program, I was worried that a perceived communication barrier might stand in the way of the socialization with the other campers. I couldn’t be more wrong! The others were fascinated with sign language and Deaf culture. The entire group became fast friends very quickly. For further information about my trip, you can E-mail me at: [email protected] or write to me at: Micah Brown, 9238 SW 18 PL, Portland, OR, 97219.
