Jewish Deaf Business
by Sharon Ann Dror
Jed & Joel Barish WebbyNation 814 Thayer Ave., Suite 350 MD 20910 Silver Spring MD
TTY 301.562.6010 Voice: 301.562.6010 Fax: 301.562.6030 www.deafbuy.com
Joel And Jed Barish
Two Deaf Brothers Run A Business in Silver Spring, MD
What Kind Of Business?
"We have two divisions; deafbuy.com and ScreenFIRE", Joel
Barish responds, "deafbuy.com, the Internet Superstore for all your hearing loss needs and much
more!
"ScreenFIRE is what we see as an extraordinary instant messenger client that has been referred to by others as an "email on steroids". ScreenFIRE enables anyone to connect and communicate that operates on its own network. ScreenFIRE has many potential applications including sending messages to 2-way pagers, wireless devices and cellular phones as well as making TTY calls for the deaf and hearing impaired in near future in which it is a small portion of its targeted market. It maintains a list of your ScreenFIRE "buddies" and alerts you to who's online at anytime. ScreenFIRE offers chat-room-style "conference mode", private conferencing, and one-on-one messages - but the only critical item is your email address, which identifies you on the system."
Why Did You Start The Company?
"Jed informed me about the internet opportunity", Joel explains, "I thought that it will have a great
impact on Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. I met with John Yeh about it. He had agreed
to do something since he was retired ...wanted to do something to Deaf community, too."
How It All Got Started
"I was a professional travel agent with American Express Travel
Services. Jed had been self taught doing all technology including web development, internet
development. John Yeh sold his company in Rockville, MD. We launched Deaf America Internet
Service as deafamerica.net in November 1997."
How Did You Fund It?
And How Many Employees Do You Have?
"We all put our own money from our own pockets." "We have 7
employees and several field representatives in various states."
What Are The Future Goals Of Your Company?
"One-Stop place for Deaf and Hard of Hearing thru
deafbuy.com, expanding more order fulfillment for many mom-pop business, organizations and others thru deafbuy.com
as we do for USADSF, DeBee Communica tions and others, Provide media services to
Deaflympics, World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and other major events. We did for
Deaflympics in Davos, Switzerland and WFD in Brisbane, Australia. You can get those
information: www.webbynation.com/davos and www.webbynation.com/wfd
"We are expanding more services for deafbuy.com like Deaflympics, One Day: Our View book, Terrylene one woman show tour, etc."
"deaf buy.com is considered as one-stop internet for Deaf and Hard of Hearing including worldwide events, shop ping online, online customer support and other unique features."
About Joel and Jed
"We have Deaf parents. Harold & Virginia Barish. Our father,
Harold grew up in New York City", Joel responds, "His parents escaped from Russia during
the communist revolution in 1910's. Jed and I were born in North California. Our mother,
Virginia converted to Judaism when she married Harold. Our father realized that there was no
Deaf Jewish community in Bay Area. However, we do practice Jewish tradition. We never been
involving in Bar Mitzvah. We all always been proud to be Jewish. Our parents really do
raise us very well to be strong leadership and be difference for everyone!"
Education
Joel graduated from California School for the Deaf, Fre mont in 1986. He attended
Gallaudet University and received his BA degree in TV, Film and Photography in 1992. Joel
is 33 years old and is married to Nancy Hart. They have one son, Justin Hart born on
October 3, 2001.
Jed graduated from California School for the Deaf, Fremont, in 1988. He also attended Gallaudet University and others before being self-taught into internet technology. Jed is 30 years old and is with Angela Otani.