What Americans With Disabilities Face Post-Election
by Rabbi Michael Levy
Editor’s Note: Now is an important time to advocate, organize and take important steps for disability rights. We’re grateful to JDIN advisory board member Rabbi Michael Levy for his important perspective and experience.
During the Reagan administration, Americans with disabilities grew sick and died because they lacked access to the care they needed. That’s where we seem to be heading, backwards towards a darker era.
1. Advocating for the rights of the disabled on a policy and political action level will remain a priority throughout the Trump administration.
2. This is especially true since Trump need not worry about his particular approval rating. HE cannot run again in 2028 is a certainty.
3. Persons with disabilities and those advocating for them must take immediate action while the Biden administration still controls government agencies. Some examples follow:
Anyone (including the cohort of Baby Boomers now aging into disability) who may be eligible for government benefits but has none should apply for them now.
That way, the Social Security Administration, government-run education, health, vocational, recreational and other agencies will have a record of the application before the new administration’s ethos and staffing takes over Make sure YOU keep a copy of any application and the names of any government personnel with whom you spoke about it. .
If you’re not at least in the application process for government benefits before January 20, 2025, here’s what might happen:
· If efficiency in government comes to mean fewer government employees staffing the departments listed above, then the WAITING TIME to even submit records will increase dramatically.
4. We are likely to relive the ethos of the Reagan era. Back then,
Perhaps it was never verbalized or documented, but it was often assumed from the outset that anybody applying for SSI- SSDI, work-incentives such as the Plan for Achievement of Self-Support, etc., was a moocher.
Such people COULD WORK, but were presumed to prefer to live off the dole and even beget lots of kids so the government can pay for their upbringing.
You could almost hear the government saying:
If you tried hard enough, you could get up and walk out of that wheelchair. So you can’t see the board so well? We’ll give you a seat closer to the board. Oh, it’s a magic board. We’d like to help you. WE’ll get back to you….some time in the future. Look at Stevie Wonder, Helen Keller, Franklin Roosevelt, Tiger Woods, Jose Feliciano, all the way back to Homer, I tell you. And that guy who starred in “My Left Foot.” THEY overcame their handicaps. Why can't you. We don’t have to bother to LEARN what you want to tell us about your so-called disability. WE KNOW. Why, I walked around with earplugs to pretend I was deaf, eyeshades to know what it’s like to be blind. They put me in a wheelchair for a day.
Your INSURANCE COMPANY said you’re not disabled, so you must not be disabled.
Oh, I see here that your medical records are from Dr. Alexander. Ha! That quack runs a Medicaid scam. You say your Dr. Alexander is not from that state? That’s part of the scam.
You don’t have somebody here with you to help you fill out the paperwork? Okay, you just FIND somebody and call us back for an appointment. We’re efficient government workers here, not scribes.
And don’t start bellyaching about the small print, the inadequate lighting, and the fact that one of the desks is up a flight of stairs. They forced us to move here because “the government” said that the old location was too expensive
How are you planning to advocate and organize? Share your perspectives with us.
A native of Bradley Beach, New Jersey, Rabbi Michael Levy attributes his achievements to G-d's beneficence and to his courageous parents. They supported him as he learned to travel independently, visited Israel, and became more Jewishly observant. For 65 years, JBI International supported him with braille and recorded Judaica material.
He received rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1981 and an MSW from Columbia University in 1982.
As a board member and now President of Yad Hachazakah, Rabbi Levy strives to make the Jewish experience and Jewish texts accessible to Jews with disabilities. In lectures at synagogues, camps, and educational institutions, he cites Nachshon, who according to tradition boldly took the plunge into the Red Sea even before it miraculously parted. Rabbi Levy elaborates, "We who have disabilities should be Nachshons--boldly taking the plunge into the Jewish experience, supported by laws and lore that mandate our integration.”
He applauds Jewish Disability Inclusion News’s ambition to give voice not just to those who work with the disabled, but also to people with disabilities themselves. “About us? Not without us” he is fond of reminding those eager to listen, and the media to whom the maxim may be out of their comfort zone.
For over 20 years, Rabbi Levy served as director of Travel Training at MTA New York CityTransit. Now retired, he is an active participant in Congregations Aish Kodesh and Young Israel in Woodmere, New York. Most of all, he relishes the company of his children, grandchildren, and large extended family.