My apologies to the readers for the absence of this column over the past few months/issues. My move from Pennsylvania to Maryland to start my new job was quite hectic.
Many people have been asking for a report on the “First National Conference on Deaf Participation and Interpreting in Judaic Settings” held this past July in Columbus, OH. I will try to give a brief synopsis.
First, credit should be given to Alisa Warmund-Shkolnik and David Kay for their wonderful efforts in organizing the conference. They had very little help and did a tremendous job.
The conference was small, but was an excellent first step. There were about 23 people in attendance, including about 15 interpreters and 8 deaf people. Many other people expressed an interest in the conference (and future gatherings), but were unable to come for a variety of reasons.
The presentations were divided into two “tracks”, one to primarily appeal to the deaf participants and the other primarily for interpreters. Some of the speakers were “national” [David Kay on “Figurative Language” and “Frozen Texts”; E. J. Cohen on “Jewish Music” and “Interpreting for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah”, Marla Berkowitz and Naomi Brunnlehrman who con ducted a “Mincha” service for all of the participants, and Lore Rosenthal on “Text Analysis of Hebrew Prayers” (Kol Nidre, 23rd Psalm)] The other speakers were “local” experts [Stephanie Criner on “Interpreter Mentoring”, Ritchie Bryant on “Becoming a Deaf Mentor”, Verne Taylor, Jr. on “CDI Training” and Charise Heine on “A Bi/Bi Approach to teaching Sunday School”]. Due to our small numbers, a few workshops were canceled [Sheryl Cooper on “Serving the Jewish Deaf Blind Community” and Barbara Boyd on “A Partnership-the Jewish Deaf Community and the Hearing Jewish Community”]. We were also grateful that two of the sponsoring organizations, The Jewish Deaf Congress and the Columbus Jewish Foundation sent representatives to attend the conference.
Overall, everyone declared the conference to be a success. Participants were already discussing plans for the next conference. One of the best aspects was the networking and personal sharing among people who live in diverse areas of the country. Some people would have liked to see more text study of prayers and discussion of specific ways to interpret.
One aspect of my own workshop that I would like to share with you is the “launch” of a new web site. Michael Hartman and I have developed a Jewish Interpreters Web site at www.deafvision.net/jewishterp/. At present, the site includes a small sample of SIGN GLOSSES for prayers, as part of a collaborative effort between 4 interpreters who were involved with my study group in Philadelphia. Our plan is to add links to other Jewish Sites, a Book Resource List, and many additional glosses. Your feedback, as always, would be appreciated. Please feel free to write to me at [email protected].
