Disabled and Jewish – and Proud
When I entered UCLA Hillel for the first time, I quite literally stumbled my way into the building. After getting progressively more lost on campus, I somehow ended up one block off campus in front of Hillel.
But once there, I found both my community and my people. My disability is a chronic pain condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome – and I’ve had it since 2017. It has often been made a hassle to those around me. My life and reality were an inconvenience, and a reason to exclude me. By contrast, my Hillel community never made it a big deal or a negative. It was seen as what it truly is: a fundamental part of my identity.
UCLA Hillel and its incredible staff have always been cognizant of making events accessible to all, going out of their way to make sure I can be and feel included. They have checked the accessibility of events outside the Hillel building, helped me when faced with non-accessible spaces, and even paid for an Uber when there were accessibility limitations on campus. All so I could hang out with my friends instead of being isolated and stuck on the Hill, our student housing buildings.
My opinion as a Disabled person also always mattered to them. They have asked me about my needs around the building, as well as my opinion on accessibility in general. And the Hillel community, particularly Rabbi Toba, the director of student life, supports my ideas, including the formation of a disability club within our campus Hillel.
This club is working to further Hillel’s founding philosophy that there is not one way to be Jewish, and is a way for us to bring our whole selves into a supportive space. Faith and disability are hard, as is having intersecting identities. It may seem easier to hide than to engage, and my goal is to create a space and community where people feel they can be exactly who they are, disability included. I want to create an environment of inclusion and acceptance, like the one I have found within Hillel in general.
The Disabled community at UCLA is a fractured one without its own space. This has left many students, including me, feeling isolated in this part of our identity, even with support from the able-bodied world – which I was incredibly fortunate to find. The support of fellow Disabled people experiencing the same thing is irreplaceable. That’s why I want to connect students who identify as both Jewish and Disabled to support and understand one another in ways able-bodied people cannot, even if they are Jewish too.
Hillel has supported me in this mission and goal, providing the assistance this club needs to get off the ground. UCLA Hillel features many internal clubs around different intersections of identity, and I am so excited and proud to help in providing one more!
Already a space of community, Hillel is also where I met my friend and podcast co-host, Hudson. It was at Hillel where we planned and schemed the beginnings of our podcast, “Disabled Main Character.” Now we are trying to change how people think and speak about disability. This is all thanks to Hillel, for being an accepting community where we can express the full range of our identities – and for fueling us through free Coffee Bean!
As I plan for the next academic year, I am working on more ideas to provide the support disabled students like myself need, including a Shabbat theme for February, which is also known as Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month.
Hillel has changed me as a person. It has made me more confident. It has made me a leader. This wouldn’t be possible without the support and encouragement of an amazing staff, a group of people who have believed in me and my ideas. I am so incredibly thankful for them and the community they have cultivated. Hillel has become my home – a place I have dearly missed this summer. I hope to do it proud in furthering the mission of inclusion.
Happy Disability Pride Month, and happy 34th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disability Act. We have so much farther to go, but we have already achieved so much. I hope to continue to carry our community forward.
Grace Overman is a rising second year student at UCLA, where she is studying history and disability studies, with plans to minor in Hebrew & Jewish studies and education. She aspires to become a disability rights lawyer, helping to change the reality of life with a disability. She is proudly Disabled and runs a Jewish disability club at UCLA Hillel, as well as hosts a podcast on disability (@disabled.main.character).