This February the British Friends of ALEH took the initiative to mark and promote for the first time in the UK, the Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM), and its key messages. JDAIM is a unified effort among Jewish communities worldwide to raise awareness and foster inclusion of people with disabilities in ALL aspects of communal life. It is an opportunity to celebrate our commitment to diversity and removing barriers, as well as connecting with our Jewish values.

Liron Rosiner Reshef, the Director of British Friends of ALEH, said: ” JDAIM is a call to action for all of us in the Jewish community to take responsibility and to act by our Jewish values, celebrating diversity and honouring the gifts and strengths that we each possess. ALEH in Israel transforms the lives of hundreds of children with severe disabilities through its empowering approach to look for the children’s abilities within their disabilities.

Without the support of ALEH, most of these children would be forced to spend their lives in a hospital bed with no opportunity for rehabilitation and education and without the love and warmth they need to thrive. ALEH also leads the charge for acceptance and inclusion of people with disabilities in Israel and around the world. Promoting JDAIM is part of that movement and ALEH’s wider Tikkun Olam campaign.“

The primary mission of JDAIM is to unite Jewish communities worldwide to educate about disabilities and to shed light on equality and inclusion within all aspects of Jewish communal life. To make this great mission possible, we encourage synagogues, schools, community centres and other Jewish organisations in the UK to mark JDAIM in a variety of ways, and to cultivate awareness to its message of ‘Tikun-Olam’.

One way to do that is to build a programme of key speakers with various disabilities, which will focus on their achievements and how they enrich society, whilst dismantling the barriers within the word disability.

To support JDAIM, please join ALEH in its campaign to promote inclusion and ‘Tikkun Olam’ in Israel and around the world – www.aleh.org.uk

Read more about ALEH’s JDAIM campaign in the Jewish News