As a disability awareness and inclusion advocate, Joanie Calem has spent years educating others and being a voice for those with “invisible” disabilities such as mental health issues, like anxiety or depression, or neurodivergencies, like autism.
Calem was under the impression that the world, specifically Jewish spaces, was doing a lot better in ensuring that those with invisible disabilities are still properly involved, but a recent Zoom call showed her that isn’t always the case.
“It was with a national group and the topic was centered around kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh, which in English means we all take care of each other,” she told the Columbus Jewish News. “And a woman from the audience got up and said, ‘But, that’s still not true. My son has autism, and we are ostracized in our congregation.’ That really broke my heart. I was under the illusion that we were doing so much better than that.”
Calem is hoping to educate congregants about such disabilities and how to properly work with that subset of the community when she leads a Shabbat service on at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20 at Kehilat Sukkat Shalom in Columbus.
The special service is in recognition of Jewish Disability Awareness & Inclusion Month (JDAIM), which was created as an initiative to raise disability awareness and support efforts to foster inclusion in Jewish communities around the world.
Calem, a singer and songwriter who is also a congregant of Sukkat Shalom, said because she is a musician by trade, the service will include “a number of songs as conversation starters.”
“We will be running through the regular program of a Friday night service, but we will also be considering some of the specific Torah sections that deal with inclusion or exclusion,” she said. “We have this amazing Jewish literature we live by and it includes some real basic teachings about inclusion, but it also includes some about exclusion. I feel like part of the process of becoming aware is paying attention to how we exclude people and what we can do to be more aware of that.
“The service will include a lot of songs, a lot of traditional prayers and some consideration of both that weekly Torah portion and what else is dropped throughout our Torah instructions.”
As a mother of a son with autism, Calem has dedicated her time to ensuring that people are aware of those neurological disabilities, which she said goes beyond conditions like autism and Aspergers.
“Invisible disabilities are also anxiety, depression and other mental health issues,” she continued. “When you meet someone with a physical disability, you have visual signs of that. They’re in a wheelchair, have a cane, have a seeing eye dog or are wearing hearing aids. But invisible disabilities, you don’t have that notification. It’s about someone who may be suffering but we don’t see that. I don’t know if there’s anybody on the face of our planet who doesn’t know someone who is impacted in some way.”
Calem said when interacting with someone who fits that description, it is important to ask what we do and how we should go about interacting with them.
“What is your response? Is your response to slowly back away and try to get away from the person? Or is your response to lean in with curiosity and figure out who this person is and how you can interact with them? For me, that’s the takeaway from JDAIM in general,” she added.
Calem will continue the JDAIM programming from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Feb. 22
at Sukkat Shalom as she teams up with the CARE Coalition, the Department of Columbus Public Health’s initiative to a collaborative effort to address community trauma and uplift resiliency, to lead a trauma training session how to recognize it in ourselves, in others and how to be trauma friendly to people who may be triggered by factors we are not aware of.
All are welcome for the JDAIM programs.Interested community members can email info@sukkatshalomcolumbus.org to RSVP and get location information.
