By Rabbi Yehoshua and Cheftziba Soudakoff
Quite a few years ago, I attended a conference of deaf and hard of hearing Jews in Florida.
Sitting in the middle of the crowd, I was enjoying the program and the inspiration it gave us.
Then a presenter stood up and asked us, out of the blue: “How many deaf Jews do you know who attend church?” His eyes scanned the crowd for those who raised their hands.
Confident that it would be just one or two people, I turned around to see whose hands were raised.
And then my jaw dropped. Half the people in the room were raising their hands!
Ever since, through our shlichus as the shluchim to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, my wife and I have learned what exactly is behind this phenomenon.
It’s quite simple.
Deaf and hard of hearing Jews, just like any other Jew, seek out spirituality, like a moth seeks out light.
And if they do not find it within the walls of the synagogue and the Hebrew school, they find it outside. And seek they do. Their Yiddishe souls give them no rest.
Ever since that question was asked, we have been working daily to turn the tide and bring deaf and hard of hearing Jews back into the fold, and to strengthen the tens of thousands that still find themselves tottering on the point of collapse. The hundreds of accessible and deaf-friendly alternative houses of worship await them.
You see, s’iz shver tsu zein a Yid. Un s’iz fil shverer tsu zein a toib Yid. (It’s hard to be a Jew, and it’s much harder to be a deaf Jew.)
But this is not what I came to share with you. I want to share with you the beauty of being part of our community.
Our shlichus is based in Rishon Lezion, where there is a local population of at least 1,000 deaf and hard of hearing Jews (one of the largest concentrations in the whole country). We have a modest Chabad center, with dozens of visitors every week. During the week, we have several Zoom classes in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) for our online participants, who hail from every corner of the land.
We also have four full-time deaf translators who are currently working on translating Megillas Ester and sefer Bereishis into ISL, releasing high-quality videos with animation, voice-over, and subtitles in 5 languages. The Israeli Ministry of Education is already borrowing our video material for use in all Tanach classes for deaf and hard of hearing students. (We invite you to enjoy Megillas Rus in all of its accessible beauty on our website: www.chushim.org/rut)
Every week, we help hundreds of deaf Jews commemorate their loved ones at shiva homes, celebrate weddings, prepare for their bar mitzvah, have their mezuzos checked… and so on. There is no area of Jewish identity that we do not have involvement with. After all, we are their sole address for Yiddishkeit, and oh, how their connection is thriving by leaps and bounds! Several times a year, I usually travel to the States and Europe to run peulos for the local deaf communities.
Through the experience that the years bring, we have identified the four main areas of growth and great potential for impact: deaf toddlers whose parents seek out Jewish role models, deaf senior citizens who are tragically forgotten and neglected in their old age, immigrants from the USSR whose religion was Communism and its gods, Lenin and Stalin, and the thousands of American Sign Language signing Jews living on the other side of the Atlantic (where I originally hail from, by the way).
To make all this happen, we’re raising at least $36,000 by this Thursday, September 10th.
I invite each of you to be a partner in a unique shlichus that has no parallel.
To participate in our crowdfunding campaign, visit our page: https://www.give.org.il/en/campaign/chushim/
Together, we’ll make sure these Jews – and their children and their children’s children – continue to stay within the Jewish community.
In my humble opinion, there is no greater merit.
With much gratitude to the Eibishter for the zechus to carry out the Rebbe’s shlichus, and for all the wonderful people we have met along the way,
Rabbi Yehoshua and Cheftziba Soudakoff
Executive Director, the Jewish Deaf Foundation (our American 501c3 nonprofit charity)
and Chushim Ben Dan (our Israeli amuta, named after the deaf biblical hero)
Rishon Lezion, Eretz Hakodesh
