Blind and visually impaired visitors to the Ramat Gan Safari can enjoy a more accessible experience, thanks to the Right Hear application.

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In addition to supplying zoological information about the species at the safari, as well as unique stories about the specific animals housed in its 64 enclosures, the Right Hear system helps the blind and visually impaired navigate the park.

One such visitor, Hezi Eliyahu, said, "This brings me full circle. For years, while I was still a young father, I had to look for friends, acquaintances, or family members who would come with me on visits to the safari. This week, I experienced a correction – I walked along the paths independently, knowing exactly which enclosure I was next to and what direction I needed to go in, without needing directions from anyone.

"All the instructions and information surrounded me through the smartphone's speaker. The accessibility includes information about the animals, so a blind person can definitely describe them to their kids and share with them," he said.

"The fact that now I can walk around the safari alone or with my family, and even lead them, and not forgo a family outing, is a really moving, joyous moment for me," Eliyahu added.

Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama Hacohen said that the safari's new system was the city's way of "making the safari accessible to people who in the past probably avoided visiting for fear they couldn't enjoy it like everyone else."

Now, Hacohen said, "Blind and visually impaired visitors can feel like they're part of the atmosphere … No less important is the message to the hundreds of thousands of children who visit the safari each year, who will be exposed to our municipal sensitivity to accessibility for everyone and people with special needs in particular."

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Twenty teens and young adults from the United States, Canada, and England arrived in Israel this week to participate in a special program that provides students with special needs the opportunity to benefit from experiencing a gap year in Israel.

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Founded in 2003 by the Ohr Torah Stone network of institutions, the Elaine and Norm Brodsky Darkaynu Program responds to the needs of students contending with developmental, cognitive, and physical disabilities, such as Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injuries, and other challenges.

The one-of-a-kind program is unique in that it "sidestreams" students alongside mainstream gap year programs in Israel for typical young adults with special needs. The women's program, Midreshet Darkaynu, runs alongside OTS's Midreshet Lindenbaum program while the men's program, Yeshivat Darkaynu, is located at Yeshivat Har Etzion. "Sidestreaming" enables Darkaynu students to seamlessly participate in activities in which they can excel and build confidence such as dorm living, mealtimes, prayers, trips, and outings, but to be separated whenever they need individualized attention. This formula empowers them to flourish in a setting designed especially for them, rather than being made to be the 'special' kids in a 'normal' environment.

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The Darkaynu Israel experience includes Jewish studies, volunteer work, and travel around the country, like many other such programs. In addition, students receive vocational training, including at local restaurants, supermarkets, libraries, kindergartens, and the like, as well as individual lessons aimed at enhancing interpersonal and life skills with an eye toward future independence.

The past two years have been particularly challenging for Darkaynu's organizers, who struggled to ensure students could continue to benefit from the Israel experience but were limited by the many obstacles presented by the pandemic. The sincere hope is that for the eight girls and 12 boys who arrived in Israel this week, the year will go ahead as planned.

"I am so excited to finally be here in Israel and can't wait to have a real learning experience," said Chaya Brayman of Rochester, NY "Even though we are now in mandatory isolation, we are having a lot of fun and spending quality time getting to know each other well."

"At the heart of Ohr Torah Stone's message is the belief that Judaism belongs to every Jew regardless of his or her background or abilities and that it should therefore be made accessible to anyone who wishes to grow closer," said Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander, president and head of the yeshiva at Ohr Torah Stone.

"As educators, parents, and people who represent Torah values, we are obligated to create the frameworks to enable this also for people with special needs and to provide them with necessary solutions in all areas of life, including the year-in-Israel experience," he said.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid's wife, Lihi, needs little introduction. She is a renowned photographer, a lecturer, a special-needs advocate, and the author of several bestselling novels and children's books. Her latest novel, Strangers, was published in February. 

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In an interview with Israel Hayom, Lapid shared stories of her life, spoke about her latest novel and her experience being a mother to a special-needs daughter and the wife of a prominent politician, now eyeing the Prime Minister's Office.

Q: Are you active in Yesh Atid?  

"I go out to rallies in intersections and on bridges because it's very important for me, and it's certainly crucial for me that we win so that there will finally be a change in my country which I love so much.

"I think that the circumstances do allow for a change, and time has come for renewal and rejuvenation. Israel and Israelis are in need of calm and composed leadership, without any dramas, because we are sick of it."

Q: Do you ever get tired of it all? 

"Of course not. We're on a mission. These elections are about our truth, and the Israeli public is very smart – it knows how to recognize the truth. Yair is ready. Yesh Atid gave him so much experience. I think people understand that now. They know they can lean on him, that he will not be making any sudden U-turns.

"There were days when I said to myself, 'enough is enough.' I told myself I wouldn't reads newspapers, [go on political] WhatsApp groups, polls; that I was done with all that. But morning came, and I realized I couldn't disconnect. It was stronger than me."

Q: How do you feel when polls or articles depict your husband in a bad light? 

"Terrible lies have been published about him over the years, or just tongue lashing that I had a hard time reading. One time I woke up at 5 a.m., looked at my phone, and read something that woke me up completely. 

"It was difficult for me to look at Yair sleeping, knowing that he was about to wake up and read those things. But Yair doesn't get angry, and when something challenging happens, he says, 'It's difficult now, but we will get through this, and we'll see how to change the current reality.'

"Yair views life differently. For him, if one doesn't like the current situation, he should work on changing it. When most of our rivals buckle under the pressure, he's a rock, firmly grounded and weathring the storms of private and public life."

Q: What about offensive comments you come across online?

"I get very upstet about fake news and slanderous comments. I used to have a Twitter account, which I later deleted. I couldn't stand seeing all that malice. I'm a member of dozens of WhatsApp groups where I'm super political, but Facebook and Instagram I use more for lectures, books, writing, and life.

"In those rare instances that someone does send me a really disgusting message about Yair, I reply, 'We are allowed to disagree, we are allowed to argue about politics, but you are crossing a boundary.' The vast majority apologizes." 

Q: Do you affect Yair's decisions?

"I'm very involved in the party, but I don't interfere with his decisions, not at all. Yair is surrounded by professionals that know what they're doing, and Yair is good at his job. I believe in him. I support the party on the ground."

"I'm interested to hear from Yair about the things he's not sure about, his reasons for certain decisions, and it's important for me to know what his opinion is. We never talk about what is the right thing to do, rather what our opinions are on the matter. We also hardly ever mention specific people."

A year after the birth of their daughter Yaeli, Lapid parted with her camera and focused on the written word. She has pebbed several bestselling novels and her latest, Strangers, was published in February.

Q: Do you write throughout the day as well? 

"In the last two years, there have been more election campaigns which made it impossible for me to focus and write in the morning or throughout the day. I'm not like Yair, who is so efficient with his work processes and time management. 

"What I do is declutter the computer, Instagram, Facebook, and all the emails, which could take hours, and before I know it, the morning has gone by. In the evening, I'm usually busy with lectures, so 5 am is all I have left."

Q: You used to write a weekly column for Yedioth Ahronoth.

"Yes. I told myself that if I no longer had a weekly deadline, which used to drain all the creativity out of me, I would write a book to fill the vacuum created by my dismissal from the newspaper a year and a half ago. It's not just that I love to write. I discovered that I absolutely had to write, that writing is a part of who I'm."

Q: Your dismissal from Yedioth Ahronoth was very sudden. Have you healed? 

"Not exactly. I had my own column for 15 years, and I miss it very much. I also miss my readers, whom I used to meet at my lectures. "Every Friday we wait for your column," they used to tell me.

"The column was my way to connect with the world. It was my voice. It helped me understand myself, understand life, family, my country."

Q: Could you ever have imagined that you would write a column for 15 years?

"I remember when I was first assigned the column, [well-known Israeli author] Yehonatan Geffen told me 'Lihi, they are paying you so that on printing day there will be quality information to publish. Very few people can do that long-term.' So I proved I could do it. But all that was cut short because I'm the wife of a politician. Such a shame.

On the other hand, "I'm definitely freer now. I'm no longer employed [to write,] and I can be more objective. I have the freedom to say what I want whenever I want. I wrote my book out of this sense of freedom."

Q: Some attribute your literary success to who your husband is.

"I have heard such claims. No one reads a book because Yair Lapid's wife wrote it. Whoever reads my work and comes to my lectures is someone who connected to my words. Perhaps it impacted them in a certain way or made them contemplate. Whoever doesn't connect, and for whom I'm 'Yair Lapid's wife,' that's fine with me."

Q: What does Yair think of your latest book? 

"When the first three chapters of the book were ready, I emailed them to him and asked him not to comment, just tell me 'yes' or 'no.' He replied, 'Wow.' When I finished the book, it was important to me that Yair's mother, Shula, [renowned novelist Shulamit Lapid] also read it. When she did, she told me the book had been written with so much love and soulfulness."

Q: Shulamit Lapid's participation in Yair's campaign video that went viral was quite a surprise. 

"True. With Yair's father [late Shinui founder Yosef "Tommy" Lapid] she was supportive more from the sidelines, but with Yair, she, like the rest of us, got drawn into Yesh Atid. She is active in WhatsApp, and always offers wise advice. She is the wisest woman I have ever met.

"When I was writing [my first book] Woman of Valor, I was scared to bring my personal life into the book, and there I was writing that I had an autistic daughter. I asked Shula if I should share the whole truth. She then gave me a wonderful piece of advice: to write the entire truth, and if needed, remove some parts of it later. That is exactly what I did, and removed much fewer parts than I thought I would. 

"When I was writing Strangers, I revisited this advice, but what happens to protagonist Nina is not something that needed or could have been cut or softened."

Q: Your latest book is not your personal story. 

"No, but I must admit it's one of the most personal books I have ever written, in terms of characters and personalities. The parents who worry about making ends meet and the ability to pay the bills at the end of the month, that is exactly how I grew up, and that is who I'm today, a working woman who worries about household finances. Matters that are important to me are woven in throughout the entire book."

Q: Which matter is the most important to you? 

"Family. What our responsibility is as parents within a family, and a complex issue that is not being spoken of at all – what our children's responsibility is to us. Of course, as parents, we take care of our children and give them as much as possible, but I wonder how much we communicate to them that one day they will have to be there for us when we are old. We don't really stop and tell our children, 'You have responsibilities to us too.'

"Years from now, I hope my son Lior will come to visit me at the hospital when I'm there. Unfortunately, my daughter Yaeli won't. But what will happen if my son moves to another country, as the son of the heroine of my book did? 

"Stranger is a delicate discussion, about a family being scattered all over the world, about grandparents. My children are my children, but they are the grandchildren of my mother and Shula. 

"When I struggled to give time to Lior because of Yaeli's countless treatments, my parents were there for him. He often slept by them. He always says, 'At home, I might be a prince, but at my grandparents' I'm a king."

Q: From where did you draw the inspiration to write a novel about an 18-year-old at-risk girl? 

"As part of my public activities, I often visit organizations that do this kind of work, like Elem, which works with at-risk youth. When I visited one of their centers dedicated to young women who have been sexually abused, I spoke with one of the counselors, and I asked her how was it possible for a young girl to find herself in such a situation, in an abusive relationship, and where were the parents. Her questions helped form [two of the characters from the book,] the mother and the daughter who live in the suburbs. 

"I grew up in Arad [in Israel's south], a remote and somewhat disconnected desert town, which was wonderful in terms of community, but it also closes you off from certain experiences.

"When I was 12, we moved to Ramat Hasharon [in central Israel.] The move to the big city was a shock to me, but it was the most formative experience of my adolescence as well. I had to get used to noise, crowds, people dressed in fashionable clothes, a way of speaking I was not used to."

Q: You dedicated your latest book to your sister.

"Yes, because I cannot imagine this journey called life without Ilil. She is eight years younger than me, but she superseded me a long time ago and has become my 'older sister.' 

"We are complete opposites. She is incredibly organized with attention to details, and I'm messier, and I pay less attention to details. She is reserved, a lawyer, and I tend to get emotional. She is my true friend who knows everything about me."

Q: Does your son Lior help you out? 

"Very much so. He is already 25 years old, and he is studying criminology and sociology at Ariel University. His whole life, he has dreamt of becoming a policeman. Like all students, he is studying via Zoom now, and he helps me with book-related errands, helps me a lot with Yaeli. He is a wonderful brother. 

"When he was six years old, he told me he wanted a younger brother very much. I explained to him that I was very busy with Yaeli's treatments, and he was already spending a lot of time with grandpa and grandma.

"He looked at me and said, 'Mom, Yoav [Yair Lapid's son from a previous marriage] and I are not enough siblings for Yaeli.' He was only six years old, and he already understood what kind of responsibility rested on him."

Four years ago, Lapid was appointed president of the Shekel organization that works to include people with disabilities in the general community. Last year she received the prestigious Tzamid Festival Award for her work in the field. 

"Anyone who has the ability to bring about change, who can make their voice heard, is obligated to use this power to act on behalf of those who cannot," she said at the award ceremony. 

Q: Only recently you started sharing your daughter's story in your lectures. 

"I couldn't do it before. To stand on a stage for an hour and speak about Yaeli, about us, about this painful wound, and share such personal stories, it's not the same as writing about it in a book." 

Q: And why did you change your mind? 

"In August 2018, Israel's Association of Community Centers published a survey which said that 90% of parents were unwilling to have their children participate in activities together with children with special needs. I was shocked by the results. 

"I asked myself how could it be that for years we were talking of accepting those who are different than us, and how much I fought for Yaeli to be included, so she will not feel as an outsider, and in the end, parents don't want to send their children to activities with children with disabilities."

Q: Have we failed, then? 

"No. We simply have a long way to go. I'm optimistic because if we were to ask the same question from our children, they would give a completely different answer. They are more tolerant, and unlike our generation, they are growing up with children with disabilities in their classrooms, in their year, or in youth movements. They will grow up to be different parents than those who answered the questionnaire. 

"Two weeks after the survey was published, I was invited to speak at a large conference for child development workers, and I decided that was it. I no longer had the privilege to come and say, 'This is not something I speak about.' That is how my lecture was born, the one where I speak about what it's like to be a mother to a special needs daughter. But it's still not easy for me. 

"After I give a lecture online, I go downstairs to the living room, and Yair is there, having just finished his never-ending zoom meetings, and when he asks me, 'how was it?' I cannot always answer immediately. It takes me some time to compose myself. 

"it's still not easy for me and Yair to speak about Yaeli. We never hid the fact that she is autistic. Since she was diagnosed, we've been active in The Israeli National Autism Association. 

"It took us a few years to admit that no matter what we did, what innovative treatment we participated in, what expert from abroad or Israel we tried, we will not save Yaeli from autism, and she will be autistic forever. Yair and I don't want people to feel sorry for us."

Q: Do you ever feel that people are sorry for you?

"I see people's faces change when I talk about it. We don't like it; I don't feel that it strengthens me that someone is sorry for me."

Q: What does strengthen you?

"When I give a lecture to 1,000 parents and professionals out of strength and joy of life, out of having made peace with Yaeli's autism, and with the knowledge that I stopped taking the past into consideration and am less afraid of the future.

"Yair and I have tea every evening, and we never miss it because this is our way to summarize how our day went. We don't speak on the phone throughout the day because those kinds of conversations are not deep and are very brief. 

"At the end of the day, we can talk about everything calmly. I remember one fortifying moment, in the years that I was sad and did not have any strength, we were sitting drinking tea with Yair, and he told me, 'Lihi, there is a family here that needs you, children that need you, and I need you. We are on a life-long journey, and you need to find your strength and return to life." 

"There was so much sadness, stress, and worries in those years, back when Yaeli was a child. When I look at pictures in our albums and see her happy and smiling, I ask myself how come I was not happy in those moments.

"Looking back, I understand that throughout the years of raising Yaeli, I missed out on small moments of happiness and joy, so now I try to be happy in every moment."n

"On Pesach eve, at the peak of the coronavirus drama, I lost my father, Rafi, who died of leukemia at the age of 75. He had been hospitalized for months, and he still listened to the news on the radio, and doctors used to join him in political debates. He also made sure to vote." 

"Only our family attended the funeral. My brother, who lives in Los Angeles, couldn't travel in. We sat shiva alone, no one could come and visit us. Some friends brought food to our doorstep, rang the bell, and had to leave."

Q: Do you miss your father? 

"Very much. Father was not a man of words, but a man of actions. No matter what problem we came across, whenever I needed a quick fix, father was the person I called. He was always there for me. When I was late for one of Yaeli's treatments, he would take her instead of me, or if I forgot something at home, he always brought it for me. I always knew father was the first person to call at a time of need."

Q: Not Yair? 

"Yair would go to the edge of the world for the children or me, but my father was so happy when we asked him for help. It made it easy to ask him. When he celebrated his 70th birthday, he wanted to bring more meaning into his life, and he realized that what he should be doing is 'the thing he knows best.' His answer was, 'I know how to be Yaeli's grandfather best.'

"Soon after, he began visiting an autistic child twice a week, who was living in a hostel and whose parents had died, so there was nobody to visit him. They used to go and eat falafel together, that is until father was hospitalized.

"I once asked him, in a particularly difficult moment with Yaeli, 'Why is it me that this is happening to? And why is it so challenging?' He hugged me tight and said, 'Do you think Yaeli would be doing as well as she is in any other place?' I replied, probably not.

"So this is your role in life, and your journey of a lifetime,'" he said. 

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Representatives from different museums across Israel have come together to create a national network for sharing best practices on how museums, galleries, and heritage sites can welcome their visitors with special needs and disabilities. Earlier this month, the representatives attended the first-ever National Forum on Accessibility and Inclusiveness in Museums. The virtual event, which took place earlier this month, was held under the auspices of the Israel Council of Museums.

The first meeting focused on how COVID-19 has impacted access to museums. Keynote speaker Beth Ziebarth, director of access for the Smithsonian Museums, shared how her team had incorporated accessibility in the reopening of museums.

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"As museums begin to reopen during the 'new normal' created by the pandemic, my hope is that we build on the progress in accessibility we have achieved in the past decades, rather than retreat from those efforts," said Ziebarth. "It's more important than ever to invite self-advocates and families of children with disabilities to be part of the planning and protocols being put into place as we reopen our doors."

Caroline Smith of London's National Gallery and co-chair of the UK SEND Network addressed how museums could best provide what families need from cultural institutions during the pandemic.

Museum representatives from Jerusalem, London, and Washington noted that with the usual forms of communication – touch, hands-on experiences, facial expressions – being curbed due to health regulations, these sectors of the population are unable to engage as well as they otherwise would be.

The forum was initiated by the Tower of David Museum, one of the first museums in Israel to run programs for children with special needs.

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Museum director Eilat Lieber said that "through imaginative programming over the last few years, the museum has brought new and diverse audiences into the world of culture and heritage and has established a forum to share like ideas among all cultural institutions in Jerusalem. We look forward to expanding this forum together with ICOM in order to make inclusivity a standard in all museums in Israel."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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The new center will be built next to the Polinsky School for Vocational Training in Jerusalem and will facilitate integration into the workforce for hundreds of youth from the special education system. Next door, the Jerusalem Municipality has pledged to build an additional facility to house a rehabilitation center for special education youth and young adults ages 13 to 21, who have communication and emotional and psychological disabilities.

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The construction of the new vocational training center was made possible with the significant support of the Polinsky-Rivkin family of the United States and the Jerusalem Foundation.

The late Abraham B. Polinsky, who emigrated from Russia to the United States, embarked on his own journey as a youth working on the streets and eventually became extraordinarily successful in business despite a lack of formal education. After meeting the mayor of Jerusalem and Jerusalem Foundation founder, the late Teddy Kollek, in the early 1980s, the two formed a special bond and Polinsky promised Kollek to help him build a better future for Jerusalem's children and youth.

Polinsky sought to provide youth with the opportunity to complete their formal education, earn high school matriculation and gain a profession, the same ticket into the workforce that he himself was lacking. Through today, the Polinsky-Rivkin family has continually kept the promise of their grandfather and his daughter and son-in-law, Jeannie and Arthur Rivkin, and assisted Jerusalem youth.

Established in the 1980s, today the Polinsky School serves a total of 130 pupils with learning disabilities who benefit from vocational training through workshops in a variety of fields. The school is the flagship institution in the sphere of vocational training for special education youth in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Foundation expects the new center to help enable special education graduates to build independent lives as young adults, integrated into the workforce as contributing members of the community, rather than being solely dependent on government assistance.

The Jerusalem Foundation is a nonprofit foundation that promotes Jerusalem's development by raising funds for social, cultural and beautification projects. Established in 1966 by then-Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, it has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the city's budget and established parks, gardens, forests, recreational sites, theaters, and museums; restored ancient sites, synagogues, mosques, and churches; funded community and social centers, preschool centers, and health clinics; and sponsored archeological excavations, scholarships, and cultural events.

The Jerusalem Foundation is considered unique in its mission, as it funds municipal projects with private donations from international sources.

The ceremony, held last Thursday, was attended by Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, Jerusalem Foundation President Shai Doron and other executives from the organization, including Executive Chairman James S. Snyder and Director Anat Tzur. The great-grandson of school founder Abraham B. Polinsky, Adam Rivkin, and the family's representative, Helena Galper, were also in attendance.

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Ethiopian Israeli Avera Mengistu has been missing since September 2014 after he was apparently seen crossing into the northern part of the Palestinian enclave from the beach.

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'We will continue to act to bring back our MIAs, including Ron Arad, Hadar Goldin, Oron Shaul, Tzvi Feldman, Avera Mengistu — just as we brought back Zechariah Baumel and Itir Naveh,' @netanyahu says on #YomHazikaron: pic.twitter.com/ODmugs5afh

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) May 8, 2019

"Abbas said that he sees Avera's case as a humanitarian one and that he does not believe in taking civilians captive," former Israeli MK Shlomo Molla told The Times of Israel, accompanying Haili Mengistu in his meeting at the PA office in the West Bank's Ramallah.

"He said he will do everything, directly and indirectly, to obtain information on his whereabouts and bring him back to his family including working with parties that hold influence with Hamas," added Mollah.

According to the Mengistu family, a deterioration in Avera's mental state following the death of his brother had caused him to cross the border into Gaza, captured by IDF cameras.

He is believed to have been apprehended by Hamas forces and no details on his condition were revealed since then, reported the Hebrew-language site Walla News.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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