O PINION
I Know the Obstacles Faced by People with Disabilities.

That Is Why I Am Lobbying for Change
BY AARON KAUFMAN
I’VE ALWAYS BELIEVED in
living life to the fullest. When
you grow up with a disability,
you are faced with a choice of
whether or not to let it defi ne
you as a person.

People oft en fi nd it easy
to say no to someone with a
disability, “No, we can’t accom-
modate that; no we aren’t set
up for that,” and so on. But I
always wanted to hear “Yes,
don’t worry, we’ll fi nd a way.”
I grew up in Montgomery
County, Maryland, just north
of Washington, D.C. When I
was seven years old, a close
friend of my parents was
running for the Maryland
House of Delegates. My dad
invited me to join him outside
the polling place, handing out
literature for the candidate. I
felt as if I were doing something
important and I knew I was
making my parents proud.

Four years later, I stuff ed
envelopes for other candidates,
and before long I got to meet
Chris Van Hollen (now a U.S.

senator from Maryland), Jamie
Raskin (now a U.S. represen-
tative), Hillary Clinton and
others. Politics became my
lifeblood. I didn’t set out to become
an advocate for the disabled;
it just kind of happened.

When I was able to vote for
the first time, I went to my
local polling place and found
that I wasn’t physically able
to get inside the building.

The building had no accom-
modations for someone
with cerebral palsy, which
means I have difficulty with
a wide variety of everyday
tasks, including walking on
my own. They told me that I
could go somewhere else, but
I didn’t want to — I wanted
to vote with my friends and
neighbors. I refused to accept
this situation, so I reached
out to my local representa-
tives, and I ultimately had the
opportunity to testify before
Be heard.

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letters@jewishexponent.com 22
FEBRUARY 24, 2022
the Montgomery County
Council. They decided to
allocate funds to make all
polling places accessible, not
just in my neighborhood,
but across the entire county,
where more than a million
people live.

After graduating from
the University of Maryland,
I continued my work on
disability issues, fi rst as a
special education teacher
and then as a lobbyist at an
advocacy organization called
Th e Arc Maryland, which
helps people with intellectual
and developmental disabilities
fl ourish in both their personal
and professional lives.

More recently, I was hired
in a senior position at the
Jewish Federations of North
America, which has made
the empowerment of people
with disabilities a top priority
of its work across the Jewish
world. Our achievements
in this realm have become
models for other communities
as well. JFNA has cultivated
my strengths, accommodated
my needs and — most impor-
tantly — enabled me to bust
some myths about people
with disabilities. Sometimes
when people see me up on the
Hill, when we’re going to meet
with lawmakers, their eyes get
really big seeing a well-dressed
young man enter their offi ce
using a walker, as if they’re
surprised that someone with
a disability is a professional
lobbyist. Some perceive people with
disabilities as only being able to
perform jobs that involve what
many call “food, fi lth, fl owers
and fi ling.” I guess they’re not
thinking of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, Itzhak Perlman,
Marlee Matlin, or any of the
millions of Americans with
disabilities who have accom-
plished all kinds of amazing
feats. JEWISH EXPONENT
That dynamic in itself
created an opening for
progress. For example, the
chairlift at the Rayburn House
Offi ce Building was perennially
broken, meaning that when
I went to lobby lawmakers,
someone had to hold my hand
and help me walk up the stairs.

It’s the kind of thing that most
people don’t think about, but it
impacts the capacity of people
with disabilities to participate
in the democratic process.

When I told Rep. Raskin about
the issue, he and his chief of
staff succeeded in having a new
chairlift installed.

We’ve had so many victories
for people with disabilities at
JFNA. Perhaps the biggest one
was four years ago, when we
helped prevent the Americans
with Disabilities Act from
being gutted by legislation that
would have made it harder for
those with disabilities to sue
for discrimination.

But with all the progress
we’ve made, there’s more work
to be done.

Starting at home, our own
Jewish communities can and
should implement measures
that foster inclusion. Jewish
organizations should set aside
disability related funds in their
budgets that include accom-
modations for individuals with
disabilities, such as captioning
and ASL
interpretation and other accommodations
according to specifi c needs,
and events should always
be held in accessible venues.

Professionals — especially
senior leadership and hiring
managers — must demonstrate
a positive attitude about hiring
people with disabilities. Jewish
organizations must also create
an environment where all
members of a community feel
comfortable sharing what they
need. And our lay and commu-
nity leaders must include
people with disabilities on all
committees, not just disability
ones. On the policy level, we
are advocating vigorously for
Congress to expand eligibility
for ABLE savings accounts,
which permit people with
disabilities to set aside a portion
of their income on a tax-free
basis to help pay for physical
and psychological therapies,
durable medical equipment,
and other things that they
need. However, right now this
program is only available to
those who become disabled
before the age of 26, which
leaves out millions, including
many veterans; statistics show
that 70% of disabilities are not
congenital, but are acquired
later in life.

In addition, we are seeking a
signifi cant investment in home
and community-based services
that will benefi t not just people
with disabilities, but also many
low-income older adults. Th is
program enables Medicaid
benefi ciaries to stay at home
or in their local communities
rather than having to move to
a facility for care.

Each year, all of this work
culminates at our Jewish
Disability Advocacy Day on
Feb. 23 and 24. Champions,
such as Tony Award-winning
actress Ali Stroker and
Paralympic athlete Ezra Frech,
are joining us as we unite
with one voice to champion
policies that advance the rights
of people with disabilities.

My own personal mission is
to ensure that people like me
have the same kinds of oppor-
tunities that I have been so
blessed to have, and that we
value people with disabilities
for everything that they have
to off er, thus making life better
both for them and for us all. ●
Aaron Kaufman is senior manager
of legislative aff airs, Jewish
Federations of North America.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
I’m a Queer Mizrahi Jew Who Left
the NY Orthodox World. This ‘Bubby’ Connect Palestinians to Terror
WITH MATT NOSANCHUK, president and co-founder of the
Took Me In
New York Jewish Agenda as an American Jewish community
BY JE’JAE CLEOPATRA DANIELS
IN ORTHODOX JUDAISM,
a child’s Hebrew name is given
within the first week. The rules
for our lives are predetermined,
assigned based on our gender
at birth. Since I was born, I
knew inside that I was created
differently from others — and I
was labeled a non-conforming
case who needed fixing.

Growing up on the Lower
East Side as a ’90s baby, I lived
in an era when the neigh-
borhood, a historic region in
New York City and American
Jewish history, was experi-
encing major changes and
gentrifying rapidly. The Jewish
presence was in decline, and
the immigrant melting pot for
which the neighborhood was
known was being whitewashed
in a boom of galleries, 5-star
clubs and high-rise buildings.

In the middle of all of it
was me: queer, hip, Mizrahi,
not easily fitting in. My family
and I were more accustomed to
bonding with the local Puerto
Rican and Black commu-
nities than with the wealthy
Ashkenazi Jews who seemed to
control the majority of Jewish
life in the temples of our area.

I always wrestled with my
identity and the alienation of
not fitting into the class, race
and “formal” gender expecta-
tions of the Orthodox world. It
took me many years to realize
that not fitting in a box was
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM actually an immense oppor-
tunity. It gave me the ability
to connect with a multitude
of under-recognized people —
like my adopted Bubby Roz.

Bubby Roz, or Ms. Roslyn
Engelmayer, was a lovely
balaboosta who became my
adopted grandmother when
my own grandparents on both
sides of the family passed
before I reached third grade. I
met Bubby Roz in first grade
when she held a festive Purim
party in her cozy apartment.

My mother took my brother
and me; I was dressed as a
tiny brown rabbit. I remember
arriving at the door and looking
up at a towering woman who
had so much warmth in her
eyes that her statuesque height
didn’t frighten me. Her first
words to me were, “I love you
as one of my own grandchil-
dren,” and since then we have
been inseparable.

Bubby Roz was disabled,
feminist, charismatic, a bit
of a hoarder of memorabilia
(but always clean) and had the
biggest heart. She had become
estranged from her family —
her husband walked out the
door without a civil divorce
and left her to raise three kids
alone. So Bubby and I always
knew what it was like to feel
excluded, for life to present a
challenging but unique path.

And we used our alienation as
a form of empathy to welcome
the stranger.

Well into her later years,
Bubby Roz would host free
meals every Shabbat for the
“misfit” Jews of the LES who
weren’t easily welcomed in their
neighbors’ homes, or didn’t
have a “male” to lead services.

Although I was demonized
by my fellow archaic tribe
members for being “different”
and not conforming to Jewish
values, I actually spent my
time appreciating the company
of my elders and wanted to
hold mature and philosoph-
ical conversations — thanks to
the relationship Bubby and I
developed. Living in a world that
repressed my inner authentic
self made NYC seem like a
conservative bubble. We could
peer at the secular world, but
couldn’t step into it. Decades
before I found queer-inclusive
spaces, my limited knowledge
of my orientation and gender
identity was based on the
queerphobia of my Modern
to ultra-Orthodox surround-
ings. Even in the closet, I was
always automatically labeled
without being given a chance
to define myself, and the
harmful labels and bullying
buried me in depression and
self-deprecation. My parents,
too, were policed for trying to
affirm my gender presentation,
receiving reprimands from
my day school. While they
defended my differences when
they could, they didn’t want to
acknowledge my coming out
in public.

In synagogue, rabbis would
preach about loving thy
neighbor, but then make queer-
phobic jokes during Shabbat
services — and racist ones in
Yiddish so the maintenance
workers of color wouldn’t hear.

I felt like the only one who
was “different” in a normal-
ized bigoted world — and at
the same time, I was confused
because I was trying to live by
Jewish values, which empha-
size welcoming the “other.”
I left Orthodoxy in 2011
and my former religious world
didn’t want to hear my side of
the story. Families who used to
consider me one of their own
now harassed me weekly on the
See Daniels, Page 28
JEWISH EXPONENT
liaison to former President Obama (“Condemning That Flawed
Amnesty International Report Doesn’t Bring Israel Any Closer
to Peace,” Feb. 17), who needs enemies?
Not once does Nosanchuk mention the word terrorism as
directed by the Palestinians toward Jews nor Hamas and the
Palestinian Authority’s goal of a “Palestine from sea to sea.”
Hasn’t there been enough proof that no matter how many
concessions Israel makes for peace, the response from the other
side has been bombs, missiles, rockets, tunnels, stabbings and
cars driven into bus shelters.

If I’ve missed any other terrorist acts, I apologize to thousands
of Israelis who have been victims of Palestinian terror attacks.

Zachary Margolies | Philadelphia
Impersonator Not the Same as Interpreter
Dean Malissa is not an impersonator of George Washington
(“Mikveh Israel to Celebrate Presidents’ Day,” Feb. 17). That
description is demeaning.

Malissa is a gifted actor who is a renowned Washington scholar.

He is an historic interpreter. He brings a vast knowledge of George
Washington, in all of Washington’s roles, to his audiences, which
include presidents of the United States, foreign dignitaries, Congress,
governors and Purple Heart recipients. He has presided over several
naturalization ceremonies for new United States citizens.

For years, he has been America’s official historic portrayer of
Washington, working under the auspices of Washington’s home
— Mount Vernon. He serves now as the distinguished George
Washington emeritus.

Words are important, and the Exponent should choose them
with care.

Phyllis Malissa Finkelstein | Delray Beach, Florida
Reminiscing About Rabbi Maslin
I met the late Rabbi Simeon Maslin (“Reform Leader, KI Rabbi
Simeon Maslin Dies at 90,” Feb. 10) when he arrived at The
Monroe Temple of Liberal Judaism. He and I were close in age,
and I later wrote a history of our congregation from which this
excerpt came. I thought it might add to the fond memories you
in Philadelphia have of Rabbi Maslin, or “Shim” as I and other
friends called him.

“Rabbi Simeon Maslin (1957-1961) came to us in the full
bloom of youth, with little prior experience, a fine singing voice,
a self-possession rarely found in a 26 year old, and a wit and
wisdom he used to weld our congregation into a more unified
and cohesive Rabbis institution for learning and worship.” l
Dr. Joseph Birnbaum | Toms River, New Jersey
STATEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHER
We are a diverse community. The views expressed in the signed opinion columns and let-
ters to the editor published in the Jewish Exponent are those of the authors. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of the officers and boards of the Jewish Publishing
Group, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia or the Jewish Exponent. Send
letters to letters@jewishexponent.com or fax to 215-569-3389. Letters should be a
maximum of 200 words and may be edited for clarity and brevity. Unsigned letters will not be
published. FEBRUARY 24, 2022
23