Accessible To All

This article is part of a Jewish Action series on accessibility. In this installment, we look at physical accessibility—how spaces can better welcome everyone.

Even as shuls are renovating to accommodate congregants who have disabilities, and mikvaot are being built with wheelchair access, the question remains: Are our communal institutions truly open to everyone?

By the time Lincoln Square Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side moved to its new location in 2013, Nathaniel Richman Cohen was not there to see it. But his presence is felt in the very architecture of the shul, in the pews, in the amud.

Nathaniel, who suffered from Duchenne muscular dystrophy and passed away from the disease at the age of twenty-one in 2007, was wheelchair-bound from the age of eight and fully quadriplegic by his mid-teens. He and his mother, Shelley, who served on the shul’s architectural committee, inspired a sanctuary fully accessible to all. In fact, the sanctuary was named after him.

“We are Kohanim,” says Shelley. “Nathaniel saw his kehunah and his belonging to the Jewish people as just as integral to him as the Duchenne muscular dystrophy he lived with. He did not want to be denied any aspect of Judaism.”

Nathaniel’s insistence on fully participating in frum life is not unusual. Disability advocates note that over the past two decades, more and more individuals with physical or other disabilities have expressed similar sentiments and, as a result, shuls, mikvaot and communal institutions have begun to make tangible changes, gradually paving the way toward a more inclusive Orthodox community.

“Why should a male who is in a wheelchair not get an aliyah to the Torah?” asks Shelley who first started advocating for her son and others with disabilities in the 1980s. Since then, she observes, a “sea change” has reshaped synagogues and institutions.

Lincoln Square Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is a model of inclusivity. Since its renovation in 2013, the synagogue has incorporated multiple accessibility features, including wheelchair seating in the sanctuary and a rear sound circle meant to enhance sound for those with hearing impairments. Courtesy of Lincoln Square Synagogue

“As the baby boomers are aging and people are beginning to have mobility issues, things are changing,” she says. “Many synagogues with women’s sections located on balconies are now installing Shabbat elevators.”

Lincoln Square Synagogue’s new building has incorporated multiple accessibility features: wheelchair seating in the sanctuary, a rear sound circle meant to enhance sound for those with hearing impairments, and a sensory room for children. The latter is for “those kids who get sensory overload,” says Shelley. “A room where that child knows he can go any time for quiet, soothing light and softer chairs. Kids can go relax a little bit.” Shelley realized the need for a sensory room at a bar mitzvah several years ago. She saw an aide standing in the shul lobby, trying to calm an autistic child. The child’s mother soon joined them, but she was also the bar mitzvah boy’s mother. Instead of being in the sanctuary, sharing in her son’s simchah, she was in the lobby, trying to soothe her overwhelmed child. “I thought to myself,” says Shelley, “how could it be that a boy is about to be bar mitzvahed, and there’s nothing to accommodate this younger child with special needs?”

Why should a male who is in a wheelchair not get an aliyah to the Torah?

Rebecca Mayer, MSW, Yachad’s managing director of Communal Engagement, notes the progess she has witnessed over time: the increasing presence of large-print and braille siddurim as well as designated wheelchair parking and wider spaces in shuls and communal institutions, all of which point to a growing awareness of the need to meet a wide range of needs. She strongly supports the creation of “inclusion committees” within shuls to identify accessibility gaps and develop solutions, ensuring that the voices of those with disabilities are part of the conversation. “Inclusion committees help keep the conversation ongoing and are personal to that shul’s community—their unique constituents and their unique needs,” says Mayer. “The goal is to keep asking the questions of how every member of the shul can feel that sense of belonging and what actions the shul can take when barriers are identified.” In addition to consulting with the end users, it is important, advocates say, to consult with experts in the field.

Rabbi Benjamin Samuels has been at the helm of Boston’s Congregation Shaarei Tefillah since 1995. He agrees that a movement towards inclusivity began in the Jewish world at large some twenty-five years ago, with attempts made to reach out to disengaged community members, a demographic that included those with disabilities. And when it came time for Shaarei Tefillah to put up a new building, there was no doubt that accessibility was of paramount importance.

“This was the pride of the community,” says Rabbi Samuels. “This wasn’t just a pet project for those who felt sidelined or aggrieved. We were building a shul that would match its function with its form, and its form with its function. Inclusivity was very much a driving force.”

The Lower Merion Community Mikveh is the only fully handicap-accessible mikveh in the greater Philadelphia area. The mikveh has a water-powered hydraulic lift that can be used on Shabbat and yom tov. Courtesy of the Lower Merion Community Mikveh

All of Shaarei Tefillah’s spaces are now accessible to everyone. The shulchan can be lowered so that a man in a wheelchair getting an aliyah can see the Torah. Both the main shul and the ezrat nashim were designed to allow maximum visibility for those seated in wheelchairs. The shul’s beit midrash, social hall and downstairs children’s room are all accessible as well, and the ramp leading up to the pulpit has a double handrail—one positioned to accommodate a person in a wheelchair and another higher railing for the person pushing that chair.

While Shaarei Tefillah has an outdoor ramp that allows wheelchair users to access the upstairs sanctuary, it also has an indoor lift that can transport a wheelchair-bound person between floors, although it can only be operated by a non-Jew on Shabbat. (The Zomet Institute introduced its halachic solution for elevators after Shaarei Tefillah was completed.)

“At the time, we spent $50,000 on the lift, even though it is barely used, but it is inconceivable that we would ask someone to go outside in a Boston winter to use the ramp,” says Rabbi Samuels.

That type of accommodation was notably absent when Sharon Shapiro-Lacks went to her shul on Purim night to hear Megillah. With the main shul located up a full flight of stairs, a second downstairs minyan also involving a step, and the only door with appropriate access locked, several men were corralled to carry Shapiro-Lacks upstairs to the main shul in her wheelchair. When her husband complained about the lack of accommodations, he was told that the shul wasn’t required to install an elevator because it was grandfathered in under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

While the shul does have a chairlift for people who can’t climb stairs, it is useless for Shapiro-Lacks, who has cerebral palsy. “If you’re a wheelchair user, you can’t transfer into a chairlift, so that really doesn’t matter,” notes Shapiro-Lacks.

As an advocate for the disabled for more than forty years and the founder and executive director of Yad HaChazakah–the Jewish Disability Empowerment Center, aimed at promoting access to Jewish community life, Shapiro-Lacks wants to see every person able to enjoy all the same communal opportunities presented to others, no matter what their disability or condition may be. She finds that often there is a myopic approach to inclusivity, with shuls that are meant to be accessible being built without any consultation with disability experts.

“Chesed can be self-serving,” explains Shapiro-Lacks. “People feel good about themselves because they did a good deed and are reacting to a need, while people with disabilities do not want to be needy.” She dislikes the term “special needs” because “special separates us out from everyone else. We don’t want to be perceived as needy, we want to be proactively accommodated like everyone else.”

Shapiro-Lacks isn’t a fan of the term “inclusion” either, noting that people with disabilities of any kind aren’t looking to be included; they want to be equal participants of their own volition. She believes that organizations, yeshivahs and shuls need to look around and see which community members are missing, and then find out why.

Accessibility is about more than infrastructure; it’s about culture.

“Ask, be inquisitive, and don’t assume you know the answers to accommodations, or that they cost a lot of money because very often they do not,” says Shapiro-Lacks.

Across the Atlantic, Daniella Neifeld, community participation manager at the United Synagogue based in London, has taken a systematic approach to accessibility across the organization’s fifty-six communities in Britain. United Synagogue is the largest umbrella body of Orthodox synagogues in Britain.

When she took the position two and a half years ago, inclusivity was part of her role, and she defined inclusion broadly as “anyone who feels marginalized from the community who shouldn’t.” She began with physical accessibility but quickly realized it’s “much more complex than being wheelchair accessible.”

“We began by asking: What would I want if I were entering a community and had a disability? I’d want to know the layout, whether I could access the building, and what I could do inside it,” says Neifeld.

Neifeld’s team conducted a full audit of the shuls and communities under her jurisdiction, gathering data and working with designers to create synagogue-specific accessibility symbols, such as indicators for wheelchair access to the bimah. While physical signage is still being rolled out, a website now allows visitors to check which communities and shuls are accessible—and to what degree.

“This first step was about transparency,” says Neifeld. “For example, someone in a wheelchair attending a bar mitzvah can now check in advance to see whether they can access the bimah.”

The initiative aims to reduce anxiety, inform users, and encourage communities to improve.

“Being accessible is not just about having a ramp. It’s about whether someone feels welcome when they come in,” says Neifeld.

That same attention to access is beginning to shape other communal spaces as well. In Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, the Lower Merion Community Mikveh, directed by Carly Chodosh, is the only fully handicap-accessible mikveh in the greater Philadelphia area. The mikveh was built with the input of Chava Willig Levy, a polio survivor who was a well-known writer, editor, disabilities advocate and motivational speaker. As a result, the mikveh has a water-powered hydraulic lift that can be used on Shabbat and yom tov. Its fully accessible preparation room isn’t only ADA compliant; it was built to incorporate the same aesthetic as the rest of the building. Its many accommodations include wheelchair-height light switches and attendant’s buzzer, lowered vanity counters and stools, and special benches built for wheelchair transfers in both the bath and the shower. Chodosh has found that giving those with disabilities an advance tour of the special room has led to solutions that make the mikveh work for an even larger number of people.

“One thing I have learned is that nothing is more valuable than asking an individual what they will need to ensure the ease and meaning of their visit,” Chodosh says. “In one instance, we had a deaf woman coming to see the mikveh, and it was only during the walk-through that we realized that she had no way to communicate with the attendant over the intercom.”

A workaround was found, but the lesson endured: Accessibility cannot be one-size-fits-all. True accessibility, say advocates, requires more than isolated features; it demands a shift in mindset—one that begins with listening and continues with constant adjustment.

As Neifeld puts it, “Accessibility is about more than infrastructure; it’s about culture.”

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