JDAIM: Inclusion is a Jewish Value

Last week I released a podcast episode with Meredith Polsky, the Executive Director of MATAN Inc. Among other topics, we discussed MATAN’s latest report entitled, “Closing the Inclusion Gap”. Meredith and I discussed how a common barrier for inclusion is the difficult conversations institutions and organizations must have around the concept itself. Is inclusion a core value, and how high should we rank it? Almost all places want to help; they want to be inclusive. But with 10/7, fears of assimilation, and changing cultural currents, institutions have felt that they do not have the capacity to place inclusion to the top of the list – room must be made for Israel education, antisemitism training, and Hebrew literacy. These are important values that ought to remain at the forefront, but I worry that with these new concerns, inclusion once again gets pushed to the side. In a time of incredible vulnerability for Jews, disabled Jews should not be the collateral damage of this moment. It is worth remembering that even when we are in dire straits, as Jewry finds itself in 2026, inclusion is not a second-tier issue – it remains a primary concern. This is because disability inclusion runs through the heart of Jewish belief, experience, and continuity. Let's look at why.

Before any Jewish particularism, vis-à-vis the Torah or even Noahide laws gets involved, the first act of human creation performed by Hashem is that of making the primeval human (Adam) in the divine image. There are many different interpretations of this. Maybe the neshama (soul) is what is made in the divine image. Maybe human physical appearance mimics the divine. Perhaps the human mind, with its ability to reason and create, reflects the divine. Whatever the answer, by including this fact so prominently within the text, Hashem makes clear to us that this is no ordinary detail. Hashem reminds us that we are all imbued with something special that makes each of us extraordinary. It also teaches us that we are created with a special purpose. Having an element of Hashem within us means we have something divine to contribute to the world. 

This looks different for each person. Not everyone is going to have the grandiose mission of ending wars or curing cancer; some missions seem small but are actually significant. Take, for example, the mission of the disabled person. I am not here talking about a “high functioning” person like myself; I am talking about the people all too often forgotten – those who are placed in special homes or need assisted living. Hashem has not placed them into this world as a burden; Hashem has placed this person here as an opportunity. They are different and have challenges that make life “difficult” in neurotypical eyes. I won’t get into the nuances we must understand when caring for these people, but what I will say is that regardless of the approach taken, it must be rooted in the idea that these people are made in the divine image. Hashem does not cause accidents. Hashem has made a natural world with free will, yet has also placed each actor on the stage, knowing their actions will make a difference. It may seem perplexing to us – after all, we are only human, but the moment a person is born, when their neshama enters their body, Hashem has set them upon their task. It is our duty, as good Jews, to support them, just as we also deserve to be supported.

Millenia later, a new great divine act occurs: the giving of the Torah to Moshe Rabbenu on Har Sinai. There are multitudes of provisions regarding disability inclusion that appear in both the Tanakh and later in the Oral Torah. I cannot possibly aim to cover it all in this brief blog, so let me first cover two considerations from the Chumash. The first is to care for the Ger, or as translated by many, the “resident alien”. This can encompass many different minority groups – immigrants, people of colour, religious minorities; but it can also be extended to understanding the “alien” from within our established society. Disabled people are often “exiled” to hidden corners, forgotten and left out. This is exactly what Hashem tells us not to do. In Egypt, the Egyptians looked the other way as the vulnerable Israelites were abused. We cannot turn away when disabled people, targeted deliberately or accidentally, are similarly pushed to the wayside. Hashem invokes our experience as the minority to encourage us to use our privileged positions to advocate for change. I am not talking exclusively here in broad social justice language. I look to programs like Yachad or Ramah Tikvah, where Jewish young adults take their free time and give it back to groups traditionally ignored, using their own personal agency to affect change and give opportunities. 

The second chumashic principle is that of not putting a stumbling block before the blind. This seems simple – not contributing to active discrimination, but as our Egyptian experience taught us, bystanding is also a crime. We must, when we see these stumbling blocks, remove them. This naturally means physical barriers: installing bimah ramps, purchasing braille siddurim (visit JBI Library), and providing sign language interpretation at events. But this also means, for people with invisible disabilities like myself, removing invisible barriers. It also means confronting the ever-present spectre of bias that blocks disabled people from reaching success. Our responsibility, as illustrated by the Chumash, is to actively remove these stumbling blocks. 

Beyond laws enumerated within the Tanakh, we can also turn to the arc of history. Time and time again, we see that antisemitism and ableism are intertwined; our greatest enemies target disabled Jews especially. There are many enemy nations in the Tanakh – the Philistines, the Canaanites, the Edomites. But Amalek holds a special place in Jewish memory. It is not enough to defeat them on the battlefield; it is a requirement to blot out their name altogether. This is because Amalek does something that even these other enemies would not dare do - target the most vulnerable of Israel. In their first encounter with B’nai Yisrael in the wilderness, we learn that the Amalekite strategy is to attack Israel from behind, targeting the “stragglers”. These “stragglers” include pregnant women, the elderly, and the disabled. Attacking this group not only shows cowardice but a complete rejection of B’Tzelem Elohim. This is an act of inhumanity: Amalek views the targeting the stragglers as heroic.

 A similar ideology was conducted by the spiritual descendants of Amalek: the Nazis. We forget that as German Jewry was broken down over the course of the 1930s, the first targets for the Nazis were the stragglers – the disabled and the “mentally infirm”. A similar view, that this was a courageous move to attack the weak, began a cycle of hate that led to six million Jews dead. What we see here is that Jews and the disabled play a special role in the ideology of hatred; these are the scapegoats and easy targets that must be eliminated first. For Amalek and the Nazis, these groups posed a threat to their supremacist agenda. Therefore, we must realize when we see ableism, we see the undercurrents of antisemitism, and when we see antisemitism we see the undercurrents of ableism. We have a practical and spiritual requirement to combat this hateful ideology. We are commanded to blot the name of Amalek. As we well know, whether it is Hamas or Hitler, Amalek as a people may be gone, but their ideology of hatred continues to mutate, and it is our responsibility to blot them out.

Here, we have articulated many principles given by Hashem as to why disability inclusion and justice are central to. But from a practical perspective, as educators and organizations, while we may sympathize with disability inclusion, why would it be practical to elevate this to one of our top priorities? It’s because disability inclusion impacts each and every one of us. While I focus on distinct groups, the autistic, the neurodivergent, the physically disabled – our principle of B’Tzelem Elohim also means multiplicity; we are all made unique and therefore come with distinct strengths and challenges. This makes an inclusive framework essential. We need pluralistic education that is dynamic and meets the needs of the individual. This is articulated in Proverbs, where we are told to educate a child in their own way. This important framework, recognized by King Solomon, remains important to us today. 

The threat to Judaism is alienation, where our youth and even adults feel alienated from their traditions and communities. We all too often apply the same framework, but everyone learns and connects to Judaism in their own way. We should take what the disability inclusion movement has taught us and apply it to Jewish Education more broadly. While doing so, we cannot ignore the active focus on disabled Jews. They, just like the non-disabled, when nurtured, can become our greatest leaders. Think of Albert Einstein, who has posthumously been diagnosed with Autism, as a major 20th Century Jewish figure. Simultaneously, through careful analysis, one might diagnose Yosef or Yitzchak as neurodivergent. Given the right support, our disabled brethren can rise to become modern day leaders; after all, Moshe Rabbenu had a speech disability and was supported by Hashem and brother Aharon. 

The sources I have included here scratch the surface. I did not get to Talmud, to Midrash, or to medieval or modern commentators. But with the little I did cover today, I think it becomes clear that disability inclusion runs at the heart of Jewish thought and Jewish past and future experience. It is our responsibility to center it in a prime position. Disability Inclusion has always been a central Jewish tenet and, when applied correctly, can lead to great success. Look at one of the great modern Jewish success stories: Chabad-Lubavitch. Their credo, to meet every Jew where they are at, and to treat them as B’Tzelem Elohim, regardless of religiosity, parallels the message of disability inclusion. Let’s follow the message of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who stated that the spiritual connections and needs of Disabled Jews must be attended to, and, in many cases, may be greater than that of non-disabled counterparts. Inclusion is Hashem’s rallying call – so let’s follow Hashem’s lead!