jews d

on the cover

in
the

A

P
IN

T
G
G
O

Opening Doors

Community strives
to give all students
a Jewish education.

JENNIFER LOVY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

O

ne late summer morning, Chaya
Leah Tinman walked into the Jewish
day school her two older children
attended. She intended to enroll her toddler
Hershy in a Mommy and Me class. As Tinman
approached the desk, holding her 17-month-
old, she was told: “We don’t have a program
for him.”
Tinman was dumbfounded. Although
Hershy was born with Canavan disease, a pro-
gressive degenerative neurological disorder, it
was a Mommy and Me class.
She could not help but think: “How could
they not accommodate him when I was going
to be there the whole time?”
“I just wanted him in a Jewish environ-
ment,” Tinman said. She says she left the
school feeling devastated by the lack of under-
standing about the need to be inclusive and
what she saw as a failure to recognize the
value of a Jewish environment for her son.
“What they said was, ‘We don’t have a pro-
gram for him.’ What I heard was, ‘We don’t
have a place in our community for your child.’

“I am a product of a Jewish day school,” she
said. “It never dawned on me I would send
him anywhere else but a Jewish school. I felt
that however much time he had on this Earth,
he should have a Jewish education.”
That was 28 years ago, yet the experience
had a lasting effect on this Southfield mother
who became a social worker and advocate
for families of children with disabilities. As an
advocate, one of her roles is to help parents
understand their rights and obtain appropri-
ate services and resources for their children.
A few years after Tinman’s heartbreaking
experience, schools slowly began to recognize
the value of inclusion programs and started
mainstreaming children with disabilities in
general education classes when possible.
“Since then, the schools and synagogues
have come a long way in terms of educating
all the children in our community,” Tinman
said. “For example, some of the day schools
now have their own support staff, including
social workers and speech therapists.”
Jewish communities around the country,

continued on page 12

10

February 23 • 2017

jn

TOP: Ben Silverman and Carlie Suris participate
in an Efshar Circle Torah scroll writing demon-
stration. ABOVE: Sean Zorn takes a turn blowing
the shofar during an Efshar Circle event.

