Editor’s Note: The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism published the following two articles to its website.
Article #1
by Alexis Kashar
I was born a deaf Jew. Fortunately, both my parents are deaf, as were my paternal grandparents. With three generations of deaf family, I always had the gift of full access to language through sign language. But due to our unique communication situation, my family did not have access to the greater Jewish community and I could not receive a Jewish education.
My sister Debbie is the only member of my birth family who can hear. She was trapped between the hearing world, the deaf world, and the Jewish world. She was not deaf, yet she too had no access to the greater community because it was inaccessible to our family.
After I received my law degree from the University of Texas at Austin I relocated to Los Angeles, where I focused on civil rights, specifically special education and disability rights. Little did I realize that this advocacy work would serve me well when I would become a mother.
As I was forging ahead professionally, my family expanded as well. My children all were born in Los Angeles: Leah, who is now 14, Ava, 12, and Benjamin, 9. They all are hearing.
In Los Angeles, my experience as a Jewish mother began as a battle, and in my role as a mother I faced my greatest challenges to participation in Jewish communal life. Like most Jews, I want to give my kids the gift of moral stability. I want them to become full-fledged members of the community. For this to happen, I had to join a synagogue, go to services, and become a practicing Jew to share the experience with my children and be a role model for them.
I soon learned that the doors to the Jewish world were not open and it was not welcoming to me and other deaf people. I was unable to experience Judaism freely with my children. I was told that communication access to the Jewish world was too costly, even though I was a full paying member of a synagogue and enrolled my children in its preschool. I was uncomfortable bringing my own interpreter to services, but negotiating for access reduced me to a beggar.
I was begging to be given the opportunity to be a Jew. I would have to pay more than everyone else to participate in my own heritage. Paying for my own interpreter is the equivalent of making people who use wheelchairs provide their own ramps.
We moved to Westchester County in New York State seven years ago. My Jewish challenges increased when my oldest child approached bat mitzvah age and I realized that I could no longer accept the status quo. I was conflicted between my desire to be an active participant in her Jewish experience and being worn out from beating on the walls. For example, to kick off the preparation for her bat mitzvah, we were to attend a Shabbat retreat arranged by her religious school. I am embarrassed to admit that I almost skipped this event altogether because I was not sure how to create the access that I needed without being intrusive. I was burnt out from fighting for access to several important events taking place at around the same time.
Fortunately, I had become involved with the Jewish Deaf Resource Center, a national advocacy organization. Its founder, Naomi Brunnlehrman, agreed to work with me and encouraged me to make the Shabbat retreat a priority. She even offered her services as an interpreter. A trilingual interpreter, she is able to interpret Jewish prayer from Hebrew to American Sign Language as well as to interpret from English to ASL and vice versa. The Shabbaton would have been inaccessible without such an interpreter.
My daughter and I went to the retreat. It was so meaningful that I became even more committed to the success of her bat mitzvah. Leah
