Jewish Contributions to Humanity

# in a series

Three Jews Who
Turned the Tables
on Disability.

LUDWIG GUTTMANN (1899-1980).

so you can monitor their location.
My wife and I use this app to see
where our kids are and to make sure
they’re safe.
2) Make sure your kids always keep
their location settings (GPS) turned
on. They might turn “Location
Services” off to preserve their battery
or because they want their privacy;
but safety should always come first,
and you can use their mobile device
as a tracking beacon in the event of
an emergency.
3) Tell your kids if their phone’s
battery is about to die, they should
text you the phone numbers of a few
friends or adults they are with. This
should become routine so that in the
event you can’t get in touch with your
children, you have responsible people
close by you can communicate with
about their wellbeing.
4) If you’re at a crowded venue
with your kids/teens (malls, concert,
amusement park, etc.), use a GPS
tracker (like Tile) to keep track of
them. For teens, you can place Tile (or
a similar tracker) in a wallet or bag
while it might be wise to sew one into
a younger child’s jacket or shoes.
5) Make sure all your children’s
social networks are kept private.
There’s a reason most social networks
require users to be at least 13. Keep in
mind that the 12-year-old girl follow-
ing them on Instagram might actually
be a 55-year-old predator.
6) Remind your kids/teens to never
agree to meet someone they were
chatting with online IRL (in real life) or
reveal their address or whereabouts.
7) Remember that it’s not only apps
like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook
and Kik that have messaging capabil-
ity. Your kids can also be chatting with

Kids have been gr oomed by predators on mul-
tiplayer action survival games like Fortnite.

potential sexual traffickers or abduc-
tors on other apps like Twitcher and
in popular live-action video games like
Fortnite.
8) Know what your kids are doing
online. Look at their YouTube view-
ing history and at their text messages
(especially group SMS). Your desire to
keep your kids safe trumps their right
to privacy!
9) Know the popular abbreviations
kids/teens are using when they text/
message their friends. Something that
looks innocent like the number “9” is
a code for their friends that there is a
parent in the room. This abbreviated
text messaging language changes
often so try to keep up with the secret
ways they’re communicating with
their friends.
10) Consider getting a wifi system
like Gryphon to protect your kids
from online threats. It filters con-
tent, enforces safe search, monitors
browsing history and more.
As parents, we would be foolish to
think we can keep our children and
teens completely safe from the many
dangers they face on the internet.
However, we can take action to keep
them relatively safe from those who
seek to do them harm. •

Rabbi Jason Miller, a local educator and entre-
preneur, is president of Access Technology in
West Bloomfield. Follow him on Twitter at
@RabbiJason.

b. Toszek, Poland. d. Aylesbury, United Kingdom.
He founded the Paralympics.
One of the founders of organized sports for people with
physical disabilities, Ludwig Guttmann was born into an
Orthodox family in the eastern German empire. At 18, a young
Guttmann was profoundly impacted while volunteering at a
hospital for injured coal miners, where he witnessed numerous
patients with severe physical injuries. Guttmann, studying to
become a doctor, eventually chose the path of neurology and
neurosurgery, gaining international prominence. With Hitler’s
rise to power, Guttmann’s life in Germany became intolerable by
1939, and he escaped to England. Over the next few years in
England, Guttmann’s work was particularly important because of the surge of severely
wounded British servicemen in World War II. He eschewed an esteemed position at
Oxford to instead work with disabled veterans, who most people at the time assumed
would have wretched lives ahead of them. Guttmann, though, believed their lives
could be radically improved if they engaged in regular physical activity. And on July
28, 1948—the same day as the beginning of the
XIV Olympic Games at Wembley—Guttmann
hosted an archery event at the Stoke Mandeville
Hospital between two teams of disabled athletes.
This event became the annual Stoke Mandeville
Games, attracted disabled athletes from around
the globe, and eventually grew into the Paralympic
Games, which were first held in Rome in 1960 and are now a major event following the
Olympic games every two years.

BOAZ KRAMER (1978-).
b. Israel.
Leading the way for Israel’s disabled athletes.

Born partially paralyzed in his left arm and both legs,
Boaz Kramer began playing sports in his wheelchair
at the age of five at the Israel Sports Center for the
Disabled (ISCD). He played both wheelchair basketball
and wheelchair tennis, competing internationally in the
latter. In 2008, Kramer won a silver medal in Beijing. And
in 2012, Kramer, Shraga Weinberg and Noam Gershony
won the Wheelchair Tennis World Team Cup for Israel.
Kramer also competed in the 2012 games in London.
Today, he is the executive director of the ISCD.

KEREN LEIBOVITCH (1973-).

b. Hod HaSharon, Israel.
Israel’s greatest Paralympian.

Keren Leibovitch’s life was turned upside down when, in 1992,
she suffered an injury during officer training in the Israeli military.
The accident paralyzed her from the waist down and, as part of
her rehab, she began swimming. She had trained professionally
before her accident, but did not compete professionally until her
Paralympic days. Her accomplishments in the pool are remarkable:
Three world records and five European championships in non-
Paralympic events. And two silver medals and one bronze medal
in the 2000 Sydney games and 2004 Athens games.

Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel

jn

July 12 • 2018

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