On a recent ten-day Tikvah Ramah Israel trip, twelve participants with disabilities, ages 18-40, were treated to a once-in-a-lifetime visit to a 1,000-soldier army base. Admittedly, other tour groups visit army bases; our group spent three hours at the MAZI/Bar-Lev base near Kiryat Milachi, where soldiers – in full uniform – with Down Syndrome, autism, and other intellectual disabilities are “just soldiers.”
Read More“Including campers with disabilities in summer camp is beneficial for campers with disabilities and neurotypical campers,” says Howard Blas, Director of the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah in New England and the National Ramah Tikvah Network. In an article published earlier this year in The Canteen camp blog at MyJewishLearning.com, Blas encouraged parents to consider summer camping for their special needs children for the following reasons:
Two years ago, a delegation of Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) and Jewish Funders Network (JFN) members visited eight Jewish summer camps in the Northeast in three days. Despite their different locations (from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts), sizes, and movement affiliations, the camps had one important thing in common: They were successfully including campers with disabilities in the camp community.
Read MoreThe National Ramah Commission has announced that Howard Blas has been appointed as the first Director of the National Ramah Tikvah Network, in order to promote the growth of programming for campers with disabilities within the Ramah movement and beyond. Blas, who has served as the Director of the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah in New England for 14 years, is an award-winning disabilities educator who is widely recognized as a leading national expert and spokesperson on behalf of inclusion and Jewish education for young people with disabilities.
Read MorePALMER, Massachusetts — At Camp Ramah in New England this weekend, Israeli emissary Yakov described feeling very far away from what’s happening in Israel while sitting in the idyllic Massachusetts forest surrounding his Jewish sleep-away summer camp. He spoke about a disconnect with his otherwise peaceful town of Nazareth Ilit as tires burn in the nearby Arab village where he usually eats “the best shawarma in all of Israel.”
Read MoreWhat a wonderful evening for Ramah, Tikvah, the disabilities inclusion field, and Howard Blas! This past Sunday night, October 27, Howard Blas received the prestigious Covenant Award at the Covenant Foundation’s annual awards dinner at the Chicago Hyatt Regency. This award is given each year to three outstanding Jewish educators. With hundreds of people in attendance, Howard was acknowledged for his leadership of the inspiring Tikvah program at Ramah New England, supported by camp director Rabbi Ed Gelb and the entire Ramah New England team. He was also recognized for his role as a consultant to the National Ramah Tikvah Network; his year-round teaching of children with disabilities for their bar or bat mitzvah; and his advocacy for inclusion in Jewish education. Howard was nominated for the award by Shira Arcus, the immediate past coordinator of the Ramah Tikvah Network and a long-time Ramah New England camper and staff member.
Read MoreWhen Shelley Cohen and Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi returned to their bus after their tour of Camp Ramah in New England, they knew they had to bring the issue of inclusion of people with disabilities to a much larger audience. They had just participated in a three-day bus tour for funders of summer camps for children with disabilities sponsored by the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Jewish Funders Network. Shelley and Jennifer, two energetic, visionary women, who had only first met on that bus, immediately went to work. Astonishingly, in under three months, they managed to assemble nearly 150 people from every part of the Jewish disabilities world for a conference entitled, “Opening Abraham’s Tent: The Disability Inclusion Initiative,” which took place in Baltimore, Maryland following the recent Jewish Federations of North America‘s 2012 General Assembly.
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