WORK IN PROGRESS . . .

    I have an idea, brewing in my mind, that I wanted to share with you. Hopefully, you will be inspired to give me your input.

    In my opinion, we are lacking resources in Jewish Deaf Education. Judaic interpreters need materials to learn more about Liturgy and how to interpret it. Religious School teachers need good materials for teaching deaf children. Jewish Deaf Adults need more resources to further their Jewish Education.

    To date, I only know of three organizations who have published relevant study materials:

    The Jewish Deaf Congress published a book in 1986, called Signs in Judaism, which explains many Jewish concepts and demonstrates a drawing of suggested signs for some of these concepts. There has been talk for about six or eight years of updating the book, in BOOK or CD-ROM format.

    "Our Way" has published a variety of pamphlets on Jewish Holidays and Shabbat, giving background about each holiday and demonstrating (through drawings or photos) how to sign basic blessings, in Signed English.

    Jewish Heritage and Holidays in ASL (JHAH) has developed a series of videotapes called "Jewish Heritage and Holidays in ASL". To date, there are six tapes: 

1. Purim, 
2. Passover, 
3. The Holocaust: An Interview with Samuel Landau, 
4. Simon Carmel - The Holocaust: A Deaf Perspective, 
5. David Bloch: Artist and Holocaust Survivor, and 
6. Food Brachot and the Meaning of Shema.

    As I mentioned in my last column, at the recent Interpreter Special Interest Group at the Jewish Deaf Congress Convention last August, 2001, the interpreters spent quite a long time discussing the need for additional "media" and materials, for both deaf and hearing Jews to learn more about liturgy.

    Here's an idea I came up with . . . . to make a video tape of various deaf people and experienced interpreters, discussing the meaning of various important and common prayers (from the Shabbat Liturgy?) and then demonstrating how they personally prefer to sign/interpret that prayer. It would be important to include a number of different "faces" on the video, representing various traditions and signing styles:

1. Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf, California
2. Jewish Deaf Community Center, California
3. Congregation Bene Shalom, Skokie, IL
4. New York Orthodox Deaf Communities:
   Brooklyn Hebrew Society of the Deaf
   Our Way/NCSY
   Beth Torah of the Deaf
5. Manhattan Young Jewish Deaf Adults/Jewish Deaf
   Resource Center (Marla Berkowitz/Naomi Brunnlehrman),
6. New York Hebrew Association of the Deaf/Temple Beth Or of the Deaf (in the tradition of Meyer Lief)
7. Philadelphia Hebrew Association of the Deaf
8. Washington Society of Jewish Deaf/Havurah
9. others??

    I think it would also be good to document various "well known" interpreters, as a means of comparing the similarities and differences in their styles: 

1. E.J. Cohen,
2. Jan Seeley
3. Sheryl Cooper, 
4. David Bar-Tzur,
5. Joe Rosenstein, 
6. Michael Hartman, 
7. Lore Rosenthal (oh, that's me!) . . . 
8. and YOUR favorite interpreter (that unfortunately I might not know ...).

    This past month, I have been talking and emailing with Cassia Margolis from JHAH. They already have a "distribution channel", for making duplicate copies of videos and mailing them. They also have a mailing list of synagogues and, organizations throughout the country who are interested in this type of resource. [I have a similar mailing list, through the Kesher Camp Program]. Cassia even has video cameras, to loan.

    Soooo . . .what do you think of the idea? Is it feasible? If all of the "faces" on the video donated their talent, it would also be very cheap. According to JHAH it would only cost about a thousand dollars to edit the tape, then about $3 per tape to copy and another $3 to mail (which could be passed along to the end user).

    Please write back with your input and feedback to lorelyon@aol.com. Til next time...

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