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The Inclusion Initiative of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto is pleased to honour the following individuals and organizations who have made such a difference in our community.

INDIVIDUAL - Honey and David Levy
For the past two years, Honey and David Levy have opened their home and their hearts to people with special needs. Together with their children and friends they host an integrated summer camp program to which members of the community are invited. The Levys make every effort to ensure that this program is warm and welcoming, and that special needs are accommodated. They also invite individuals with special needs to their Shabbat table, treating them as honoured guests and making every effort to have them feel part of their extended family.

PROGRAM - The Friendship Circle
(from left: Esty Grossbaum and Chaya Perman)
For the past five years, the Friendship Circle, a program of Chabad Lubavitch of Ontario, has reached out to children and teens with special needs and their families. The support provided enables these young people to participate in a full range of social and Judaic experiences. The Circle’s unique formula introduces teenage volunteers to the children and teens with special needs, and their families, facilitating the development of friendships and peer relationships. The volunteer teens learn empathy, they learn to see children first. Most gratifying is witnessing children with special needs become volunteer teens with Friendship Circle. All are enriched through these shared experiences.

ORGANIZATION - Camp George
(from left:  Jeff Rose, Ellyn Freeland, Deborah Cooper, His Honour David C. Onley and Roz Mosko)
URJ Camp George, an overnight camp of the Reform Movement, is a place to discover the joys of living Judaism as part of a warm, spirited and diverse community, and thus has made a commitment to the Inclusion of All. All campers and staff, those with special needs and those without, live and participate together, with the focus being on each individual’s abilities to partake in a truly transformative Jewish experience. The Camp trains their staff to provide support to facilitate true integration, and thus have created a model of an inclusive environment. Campers with special needs often become staff members at Camp George. Inclusion is no longer a special project at Camp George; it is an integral part of who they are and what they do.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT - Rabbi Joseph Kelman
(from left:  His Honour David C. Onley and Rabbi Joseph Kelman)
For many years, Rabbi Joseph Kelman has been instrumental in bringing Jewish individuals with special needs into the mainstream of our community.  In 1961, as a young Rabbi, he became aware of the lack of Judaic and Hebrew education for people with a developmental disability so he started a school called Kadima, one of the first of its kind in North America. It was a family affair, with his late wife, Ruth, forming a choir of Kadima students that competed with other Jewish schools across the city. Today, students at Kadima continue to learn to participate in the religious life of their community.

Later, he recognized the need for a day school for youths unable to compete in a dual language program. Together with Rabbi Witty he created She’arim. The school’s graduates have succeeded in overcoming their disabilities and gone on to study at CHAT and subsequently university or college.

Rabbi Kelman also chaired the North American-wide Committee on Special Education under the auspices of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism for over 30 years. Under his dynamic leadership the Committee created manuals on inclusion of people with special needs and was instrumental in inspiring the Camp Ramahs across North America to include children with special needs in their programs, including Camp Ramah in Muskoka in 1970.

Believing strongly in the rights of people with developmental disabilities to a full, rich life in the Jewish community, Rabbi Kelman, together with Sam Handler, Rochelle Carrady and Sandy Keshen, founded Reena in 1973. Reena today continues to be a ground-breaking organization and a model for the world in the integration of people with developmental disabilities into the community.

Thanks to the Rabbi’s unfailing efforts during more than four decades, people with special needs began to be welcomed, not only in his synagogue but in others as well, as he spread his ideas to the international Jewish community and beyond to the non-Jewish world.