Rebeccare
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I'll be you didn't know that February is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM)! But it is!
I found an excellent article that a rabbi wrote in honor of JDAIM about her experience having a disability: https://reformjudaism.org/blog/2019/02/07/hiding-my-disability-kept-me-my-fullest-life
Even if you're not Jewish or not religious, it's just a nice article. Like me, she grew up feeling like any illness was a sign of physical or moral weakness. But as she's gotten older she's learned to feel more comfortable in her identity as a person with disabilities, and she has learned to be kinder to herself.
I found an excellent article that a rabbi wrote in honor of JDAIM about her experience having a disability: https://reformjudaism.org/blog/2019/02/07/hiding-my-disability-kept-me-my-fullest-life
Even if you're not Jewish or not religious, it's just a nice article. Like me, she grew up feeling like any illness was a sign of physical or moral weakness. But as she's gotten older she's learned to feel more comfortable in her identity as a person with disabilities, and she has learned to be kinder to herself.
When Jews internalize the hatred of Jews by others and turn it upon themselves, we say they are self-hating Jews. By much the same mechanism, ableism can be internalized. Very young, I absorbed the message that illness and disability were things to be ashamed of, and so I hid my troubles in shame. It was only when another disabled rabbi gave me permission to value myself as I was, by modeling that very behavior for me, that things began to change for the better in my life.
Leviticus 19:14 teaches us that we are forbidden to curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind. We are not to treat people badly because they are disabled. This prohibition extends to all persons with disabilities, including ourselves.
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