Garbled Graggers – Purim and Inclusion #JDAM15

I promised earlier that I would come back to Purim with a focus on inclusion–it is, after all, still Jewish Disability Awareness Month. Among the communally celebrated holidays, Purim may pose some of the very toughest challenges for inclusion. I’m going to try to put on my thinking hat here to look at what the challenges are to an inclusive Purim celebration. My purpose in this is not to suggest that every problem can be solved for every person in every place and at every time. Rather, I want to put in one place thoughts on how the traditional ways in which we celebrate Purim can work exclusion, and to prompt thought about how we might overcome some of those problems.

Talking About Difference – Another One for #JDAM

Turns out, Jewish Disability Awareness Month is a whole month. You didn’t think I would let up, did you? (And since I’m apparently the loudest voice in Indianapolis about JDAM, I guess I’ve got to talk a bit more in any case.)

This past weekend, I spoke at Sunday Assembly Indianapolis about neurodiversity and ableism. (I spoke mostly about neurodiversity.) I’d post the Keynote presentation itself, but 1) I think it still needs work, 2) I want to make sure I’ve got appropriate photo credits in it before posting it, and 3) I’m not a “put everything you’re going to say into the presentation slides” person, because that’s straight-up bad presentation design–see #8 on this list–and that means the slides are actually not particularly useful.

So instead of the presentation slides, you get more of my jawing on at length on the blog! Let’s start at the beginning: how do we talk about difference?

Jewish Disability Awareness Month in Y(our) Community

February is Jewish Disability Awareness Month (JDAM). I’ve blogged about it before here, here, and here. And now, right here.

(If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ve possibly already seen some of what’s about to follow. Sorry about that.)

I decided that I wanted to see if I could find any JDAM-related events happening in Indianapolis, so I did what any person these days would: I hit up Google for information. That led to an interesting result: the first five results in Google point to this blog.

In Advance of Jewish Disability Awareness Month: There Are No Four Children

Hey, all, guess what? It’s January. That means next month is Jewish Disability Awareness Month! And wouldn’t you know it? This week’s Torah portion on the traditional cycle is Parshat Bo.

Used under Creative Commons license

I know, I know, you’re thinking, “And…so?” But Bo contains this nugget:

And it will happen, when you come to the land which Yahweh, your god, is giving you–just as he said–that you will take care to perform this worship [the Passover lamb and blood]. And it will happen that your children will say to you, “What is this worship to you”? And you will reply, this is the Passover sacrifice for Yahweh, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt. (Ex. 12:25-27a)

Notably, this is the statement of the “wicked” child in the Passover Seder.

Jewish Disability Awareness Month

I posted earlier this month that February is Jewish Disability Awareness Month. Now that we’re a couple of weeks in, I’m going to come back around to that topic a bit.

You’ve been warned.