A Special School Founded by Radical Hope

There are few things that touch my heart as deeply as the world of special needs.

Over the years, I’ve written a number of columns about people in our community with special needs. I wrote about Jacob Katz, who had “a talent for listening, and for absorbing everything around him.” Having Down syndrome didn’t stop him from being a barista at Coffee Bean or taking the bus twice a week to attend Santa Monica College. He also loved the Beatles. Over ice blended drinks, we would share our favorite Beatles songs. His was “Ticket to Ride.”

I also wrote about Rivka Bracha Menkes, who had “developmental disabilities” and whose dream was to find her soulmate and have her own wedding.

Growing up in a Chabad family, I wrote, “she went to enough weddings that she learned, for example, the exact order of dancing partners for the bride: mother, mother-in-law, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and closest friends. She even knew that the bride had to change into fancy sneakers between the ceremony and the dancing.”

When Michael Held of Etta Israel invited me to her wedding to a Chasidic man from Brooklyn named Avraham Chaim Weiss, I felt I had won the compassion lottery.

“All weddings are filled with love and simcha,” I wrote. “This one had a little something extra. It had soul. You could see the joy on Rivka and Avraham’s faces, but you sensed they were also a little vulnerable. It was like they were being carried by the love that was all around them.”

And speaking of marriage, I once spent a busy afternoon at the Pico-Robertson apartment of Danielle and Shlomo Meyers, a husband and wife team who both have Down syndrome. I wrote about their busy lives, between their jobs in the Jewish community, preparing for Shabbat and holidays and visiting with friends and family. The highlight of my visit was when they showed me their wedding album, and I could see on their faces the deep love they had for one another.

North Hollywood residents Sarah and Alain R’bibo were looking for a Jewish school for their special needs daughter Iva, now nine, and found nothing. As Farr writes, “Sarah eventually discovered she wasn’t alone in her frustrations.”

I also wrote about activist lawyer Matan Koch, who gets around in a wheelchair and is the California Director of RespectAbility, a nonprofit working to advance opportunities for people with disabilities.

Koch is a quadriplegic born with cerebral palsy, which didn’t stop him from attending Yale University at the age of 16 and becoming a Senate-confirmed appointee on the National Council on Disability in the Obama administration.

“Koch’s life embodies hope through action,” I wrote. “When you’re born with severe physical limitations, hope is not the obvious choice — despair is. Koch refuses to see despair as inevitable.”

I added that “There are millions more like him, human beings who have been dealt difficult hands and who must learn to muster hope from the toughest hardship.”

So, you can imagine my reaction when my friend and neighbor Dr. Ron Nagel told me about a new building for a Jewish school for kids with disabilities, Maor Academy. It was an easy call to make it our cover story this week.

Our community writer Harvey Farr spent long hours with the staff and others involved with this school, and he tells the story of how it came to be.

From three concerned mothers who never gave up hope, to a bustling WhatsApp group, to generous donors stepping up, a much-needed and very special Jewish school was born.

North Hollywood residents Sarah and Alain R’bibo were looking for a Jewish school for their special needs daughter Iva, now nine, and found nothing. As Farr writes, “Sarah eventually discovered she wasn’t alone in her frustrations. … About five years ago, through another mother of a child with special needs, Sarah was introduced to Chaya Chazanow, 32, whose son Tzvi was about Iva’s age and had similar challenges.” 

Together, the three mothers created a WhatsApp group chat called “Questions and Sharing.” As Farr writes, “the purpose of the chat was for mothers in the community who had children with special needs to connect with one another. The group has since grown to over 70 members. Everybody shares information, resources and advice to help each other navigate the complicated world of being a special needs parent.”

From three concerned mothers who never gave up hope, to a bustling WhatsApp group, to generous donors stepping up, a much-needed and very special Jewish school was born.

When I wrote about Matan Koch, I quoted the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: “To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair.” 

Through the lives of Jacob and Rivka and Avraham Chaim and Danielle and Shlomo and Matan and Iva and Tzvi and countless others, as well as the parents and all those who support them, that radical hope prevails.