Hamodia – The Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry
By Yosef Gesser

Rabbi Shalom Lependorf has been working with the deaf community for close to forty years. He is a shining example of how one individual can make a difference in the lives of those who are challenged.

About two decades ago the Jewish deaf and hard-of-hearing had few if any services available to assist them in their spiritual growth. Harbatzas haTorah and kiruv rechokim had begun to flourish among the general population, but the deaf could not take advantage of those opportunities to grow in Torah learning and observance. Rabbi Lependorf and others like him have taken these concepts to a completely new level, using their skills in communicating with the deaf to make  the joys of Torah accessible to Jewish hearing-impaired individuals of diverse backgrounds, in the process bringing them out of isolation and enabling them to identify with their fellow Jews.

Training to Help the Deaf
Shalom Lependorf was inspired to pursue his calling while visiting schools for the handicapped, in particular the Lexington School for the Deaf, as part of his education at Brooklyn College during the 1970 spring semester. He began to volunteer his time at Lexington, whose administrators admired his dedication to its students and sponsored his training in the field at Columbia and New York Universities. He enrolled in courses that would later enable him to provide counseling and rehabilitation services for the hard-of-hearing. He learned sign language, as well as the John Tracy Clinic