Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
Jewish and Israel News from New York - The Jewish Week
It was a long way to go for a singles event.
But for the 16 deaf American Jews who recently visited Israel, the chance to mingle while touring Israel offered a unique opportunity to meet other deaf Jewish singles from around the United States and Israel. Participants in the trip, organized by the Jewish Deaf Singles Registry of the Orthodox Union, ranged in age from 25 to 67 and represented all streams of Judaism, including unaffiliated.
“The primary goal was to offer an interpreted trip, so they could explore Israel like anyone else,” organizer Batya Jacob said. “The secondary goal was to give them a chance to socialize with each other and with Israeli deaf. It’s a small deaf Jewish world, so it’s not easy to find the right person. It’s even harder for this group, because most of them sign, they don’t read lips.”
According to Jacob, the intermarriage rate among Jewish deaf is extremely high, “because they seek first to communicate, and then to marry Jewish,” she said.
Stops on the tour, which began on the first day of the cease-fire in the war with Lebanon, included Jerusalem’s Old City and the Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Masada, the Dead Sea, Arad, and Sde Boker, David Ben-Gurion’s kibbutz.
“I thought I might be bored, but every day was so interesting,” said Caryn Tenin of Seattle, who is deaf and partially blind. “I came because I wanted to learn about Israel. I wanted to have the whole experience. I loved all of it, especially Masada, because I love history.”
Shlomo Nussbaum, a grocery store cashier and yeshiva student from Baltimore, had been to Israel five times with family, but said that it was “completely different” being on an organized trip. “I like making new friends who are deaf, with whom I can keep in touch when we get back to the States,” he said.
A tour for the deaf required a few adjustments on the part of the staff. Michael Bar-Neder, a guide from Keshet: The Center for Educational Tourism in Israel, said that the tour went at a relatively slower pace since participants could not walk and talk at the same time. The light-and-sound show at David’s Tower was out, and he had to adjust to waving at participants to get their attention, since calling their names was ineffective. Bar-Neder also shaved off his mustache for the first time in 37 years, so that it would not keep people from reading his lips.
The most difficult communication problems occurred when the American group met with Israeli deaf clubs in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva. Hebrew sign language is as different from American sign language as Hebrew is from English, and a coordinator who speaks all four busily translated for dozens of deaf singles.
The coordinator’s efforts may have paid off: Jacob said that one of the American tourists and an Israeli formed a budding romance.
It was a long way to go for a singles event.
But for the 16 deaf American Jews who recently visited Israel, the chance to mingle while touring Israel offered a unique opportunity to meet other deaf Jewish singles from around the United States and Israel. Participants in the trip, organized by the Jewish Deaf Singles Registry of the Orthodox Union, ranged in age from 25 to 67 and represented all streams of Judaism, including unaffiliated.
“The primary goal was to offer an interpreted trip, so they could explore Israel like anyone else,” organizer Batya Jacob said. “The secondary goal was to give them a chance to socialize with each other and with Israeli deaf. It’s a small deaf Jewish world, so it’s not easy to find the right person. It’s even harder for this group, because most of them sign, they don’t read lips.”
According to Jacob, the intermarriage rate among Jewish deaf is extremely high, “because they seek first to communicate, and then to marry Jewish,” she said.
Stops on the tour, which began on the first day of the cease-fire in the war with Lebanon, included Jerusalem’s Old City and the Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Masada, the Dead Sea, Arad, and Sde Boker, David Ben-Gurion’s kibbutz.
“I thought I might be bored, but every day was so interesting,” said Caryn Tenin of Seattle, who is deaf and partially blind. “I came because I wanted to learn about Israel. I wanted to have the whole experience. I loved all of it, especially Masada, because I love history.”
Shlomo Nussbaum, a grocery store cashier and yeshiva student from Baltimore, had been to Israel five times with family, but said that it was “completely different” being on an organized trip. “I like making new friends who are deaf, with whom I can keep in touch when we get back to the States,” he said.
A tour for the deaf required a few adjustments on the part of the staff. Michael Bar-Neder, a guide from Keshet: The Center for Educational Tourism in Israel, said that the tour went at a relatively slower pace since participants could not walk and talk at the same time. The light-and-sound show at David’s Tower was out, and he had to adjust to waving at participants to get their attention, since calling their names was ineffective. Bar-Neder also shaved off his mustache for the first time in 37 years, so that it would not keep people from reading his lips.
The most difficult communication problems occurred when the American group met with Israeli deaf clubs in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva. Hebrew sign language is as different from American sign language as Hebrew is from English, and a coordinator who speaks all four busily translated for dozens of deaf singles.
The coordinator’s efforts may have paid off: Jacob said that one of the American tourists and an Israeli formed a budding romance.