On Saturday night, November 27th, 2010, Beth Torah of the Deaf (BTD) in Brooklyn, NY held its 34th annual Melava Malka.
Melava Malka is the name of a meal held by Jewish people on Saturday evening after Sabbath ends. The goal is to, figuratively, “escort Shabbat out the door by singing and eating as if saying goodbye to someone departing a city.” It is a custom that goes back thousands of years.
Zissy Moskowitz was honored with the Interpreter of the Year award, and Joshua Soudakoff, elder son of Sharon Ann Dror, JDCC president, was guest speaker.
Soudakoff who spoke on his upbringing, the importance of education, Jewish schooling, and how he currently interacts with hearing peers in the yeshiva dorm. “The Jewish deaf world has its own unique challenges that the regular Jewish community still has not understood,” he said, “We often need someone to translate everything that is being said.
“Many hearing people may think: when a person from Israel comes to America, he may have a hard time understanding English. But give him a few months, and he will pick up the language. So too it is with deaf people. But the problem is
