Jewish Deaf Tidbits
PEIKOFF
The Deaf Community in Canada has designated March 21 as the David Peikoff Day in honor of the individual who has done much to advocate the rights of deaf people there. David Peikoff was Jewish and passed away about one year ago.
ABC TV 'SPIN CITY'
Two Jewish deaf actors Marlee Matlin and Lewis Merkin appears on 'Spin
City' , a comedy show on March 18th on ABC. The episode is called, "Deaf
Becomes Her". It is damage control time when the Mayor Randall Winston
(Barry Bostwick)'s inept new sign language interpreter inadvertently offends
the deaf community, and Michael Flaherty (Michael J. Fox) rushes to appease
to one of its leaders, Sarah Edelman (Marlee). 
In the meantime,
Paul Lassiter (Richard Kind) is worried that Claudia (Faith Prince) wants
to move in permanently on Spin City. Lewis appears as Tim. The other two
deaf actors are Frank L. Dattolo as Andrew and Carole Addabbo as Libby.
NEW CC JEWISH VIDEOS
Evi Reznick, an librarian, medial specialist and storyteller, has been
enchanting children with her original Jewish tales for over a decade. She
calls herself a Story Spinner ~ Story Snipper because she uses her scissors
to cut out surprising shapes as she spins and weaves her delightful tales.
Combining the art of storytelling with Jewish values and holiday tradtions,
her stories are available on video. Papercutt-ing, puppetry, masks, colorful
graphics and special effects enhance the stories and all videotapes are
are closed captioned.
"I decided to close caption them for several reasons. First of all, I set out to produce first class videos, within the confines of my budget. That means not only wonderful stories with special effects, but beautiful video box covers with artwork designed by two sisters who were Olympic art contest winners, bar codes, ISBN numbers for cataloging and Closed Captioning. From a marketing point of view, I feel it opens doors, especially to public libraries and video stores. It also makes the video a Jewish reading tool. And as the baby boomers age, our hearing abilities are aging too. I am probably especially sensitive to hearing issues, because since childhood colds would settle in my ears and even though my hearing tested out as normal, I find it difficult to hear lower registers of voices and I love having closed captioning on video programs.
Finally, as an individual committed to Jewish education, I am very proud that I can make Jewish programming available to hearing impaired individuals. I was appalled to discover that closed captioned Judaic programs don't exist. Closed captioning adds about $1,000 to the cost,which is not an overwhelming cost for a low cost production, and a very small percentage of cost for a high budget production."
I am offering JDCC News readers the discounted rate of $17.95 for each program plus $4 shipping and handling per order (list price is $21.95) if ordered before May 2, 1997. Contact the Gingerbread Group at 1109 Rogeretta Drive, Atlanta, GA 30329, or call Evi Reznick at 404/634-8866 Voice, 404-634-8678 Fax, or e-mail: evirez@mindspring.com. Visit their website at http://www.mindspring.com/~ereznick
ENDOWMENTS
Gallaudet University has received nearly $1 million in private support for scholarships from alumni and friends. It is interesting to note that many scholarships are named after Jewish Deaf people such as: Auerbach '40 Freshman Math Award, Philip W. Bravin '66 Scholarship Fund, Gerald "Bummy" Burstein '50 Endowment Fund, Leo Dicker/Abe Barash Memorial Fund, The Lenore Goldman Memorial Scholarship Fund, The David Peikoff '29 Fellowship Fund, Pauline "Polly" Peikoff E-36 "Service to Others" Award Fund, Lillian Gourley Rakow '28 Creative Writing Award, Sadie Rakow Memorial Scholarship Fund, and the Frederick C. Schreiber '42 Institute Fund.
KESHER FAMILY CAMP
Camp Ramah in the Poconos is proud to announce the dates for its second season of Kesher Family Camp, a program for Jewish families with deaf or hard of hearing members on Sunday, June 29 to Thursday, July 3rd. Deadline for applications is May 1st. For more information, contact Marcia Tilchin, at 212/280-5930 TTY/V or e-mail MATILCHIN@JTSA.EDU