Churches and Synagogues Offer a Sign for the Disabled

Carrying the Torah around the brick and wood sanctuary of North Hollywood’s Temple Beth Hillel as the congregation sang an upbeat song, Larry Carmel remembered the last time he achieved that honor 43 years ago.

That was when he could still walk; before he was hit by shrapnel near the French-German border at the close of World War II and before he contracted polio during his recovery. The disease paralyzed him from the chest down.

Handed the Torah by Rabbi James Kaufman during a Friday evening service at Temple Beth Hillel, Carmel, 61, was pushed through the aisles in his wheelchair. Congregants rushed to kiss their fingers and touch the parchment scroll containing the first five books of the Bible before a beaming Carmel returned to the front of the sanctuary.

“It was a very beautiful moment,” said Carmel, a retired editor and rehabilitation counselor from Los Angeles. “It’s something I’m not going to forget for a long time.”

Monthly Dinner

Carmel was among 55 people who attended a monthly dinner for people with disabilities and a regularly scheduled Friday night Sabbath service at the synagogue.

The program, called “Moses,” after the Jewish leader who scholars say had a speech impediment, is one of many aimed by local churches and synagogues at people who are deaf, blind or developmentally disabled.

Deaf congregations hold signed services at the Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf in Arleta, the First Baptist Church of Lakewood and the nondenominational Immanuel Church of the Deaf in Downey. Pilgrim Lutheran Church of the Deaf and St. Bernard’s Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles are also deaf congregations.

Fifty-two Catholic parishes, Temple Valley Beth Shalom in Encino and the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation of UCLA provide classes for people with developmental disabilities, while the Synagogue for the Performing Arts in West Los Angeles teaches Jews with learning disabilities from kindergarten through age 16.

The 52-year-old Pilgrim Church of the Deaf and the 40-year-old Immanuel Church of the Deaf are among the oldest local religious programs for people with handicaps.

Among people with disabilities, the deaf most often join specialized congregations. “It’s mainly because of the different language,” said Father Brian Doran, a deaf priest who celebrates Mass in sign language at St. Bernard’s.

“A blind person can go to church and hear the language. . . .

“If a deaf person goes to a church where the priest talks . . . the interpreter may be very skilled but the deaf person must watch the interpreter, not the priest.”

Extraordinary Efforts

Doran said that deaf people make extraordinary efforts to worship at his church. “At St. Bernard’s, Mass starts at 11 a.m. but people start showing up at 9. They hang around most of the afternoon for coffee and doughnuts and whatever meetings they might need.

“The service satisfies a combination of spiritual and social needs, and I see that as ideal.”

Doran, 43, started to lose his hearing at age 18 when he suffered nerve damage not correctable by surgery.

He had graduated from Daniel Murphy High School in Los Angeles and was a student at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo.

“In 1963, the church and society were very different than they are now,” he said. “ . . . I was having trouble identifying myself as a deaf person. I never met a deaf person. My first assignment was not to a deaf church.

“Then in 1973 I was assigned to a deaf parish. That was the beginning of my thinking of myself as deaf. It was a little like an alcoholic admitting he had a drinking problem. Even when I began working with the deaf I wouldn’t say ‘I am deaf.’ I would pick any word but that.”

Doran’s refusal to accept deafness almost got him thrown out of the seminary.

Doran said that when his hearing faded he began to miss “all kinds of things--announcements, discussions, interactions. A lot more than I noticed. You think no one notices but they do.”

The seminary, not sure what it would do with a deaf priest, wanted to dismiss him for general health reasons, he said.

Doran said Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, who had just suffered a hearing loss and had ordered two hearing aids, took up the matter. He informally ordered the seminary to reinstate Doran, who lost much of his fear about deafness and began to discuss his situation with friends.

Four Years Not Hearing

“I was more open about telling my classmates--the ones close to me--that if I miss something, let me know. At the end of evening chapel all the important announcements were made from the back of the sanctuary. I went four years not hearing them.”

Doran and other religious leaders say programs for people with disabilities often re-interest them in religion after long absences.

The monthly dinner and service brought many worshipers to Temple Beth Hillel who had been unaffiliated with Judaism for years.

At 6 p.m. on a recent Friday, more than 50 people began arriving at the Reform synagogue.

In a parking lot off Riverside Drive, two teen-age boys waited to help guests get out of cars or to get over a slight hump in the asphalt just outside the entrance to the building.

Inside, dinner was held in an auditorium and then they entered the sanctuary for the service.

Noel Espar and Judy Tenner of Van Nuys, who have multiple sclerosis, sat in a back aisle in their wheelchairs holding hands. In a nearby seat, Lynne Koral of Echo Park held a Braille copy of the service, her black Labrador retriever guide dog at her feet.

As Rabbi Kaufman spoke, an interpreter on the pulpit signed the service and an interpreter in the aisle signed for a woman who could not see the stage.

A $15,000 remodeling job in the men’s and women’s restrooms had made the facilities available to those in wheelchairs.

Carmel said after dinner that it felt good to share all the ingredients of a traditional Jewish dinner with a mainstream congregation in a way that demystifies disability .

“I guess people sometimes are uncomfortable in the face of disability,” he said, “but we mingle and it’s been total acceptability on both sides.”

Four-Level Ramp

Espar, 60, who has had multiple sclerosis since 1960, said a four-level ramp accessible to wheelchairs attracted him to the synagogue.

“If there were stairs, which is normal, we couldn’t go,” he said. “The bathrooms were also an important part. I hate to talk about it, but it’s true.”

A few tables away, Penny Choy, who has myasthenia gravis, a disease of faulty nerve conduction, sat in a wheelchair next to her husband, Gene Rothman, 41, who is not disabled. Choy, a Presbyterian, has been coming regularly to the services with her Jewish husband.

“When I first came I felt at home,” she said. “It was such a feeling of community.”

“I suppose you could say that we’re here because I’m disabled and he’s Jewish. This is an activity made for our combination of traits.”