JDA_Magazine_PaperTurn_Sept 2025 - Flipbook - Page 31
First DeafShul Workshop
“ASK THE (DEAF) RABBI”
— LED BY RABBI REBECCA DUBOWE, THE FIRST FEMALE DEAF RABBI
Neil Kaufman writes:
We were honoured to
have Rabbi Rebecca
Dubowe with us.
She started by telling us
her life story. Born in Los
Angeles, USA, Rebecca
lived on a kibbutz in Israel
for a while.
She then went back to the USA and became the
昀椀rst Deaf woman to be ordained as a Rabbi in
the USA — and the world.
Rabbi Dubowe also explained that a Minyan
(congregation of 10) can pray in BSL, as long
as everyone in the Minyan (deaf or hearing)
understands BSL.
It was a very interesting discussion. Thank you to
Rabbi Rebbeca Dubowe, EJ Cohen, Vicki Ashmore
and Ann Clements for giving their time to organise
and deliver this fascinating "Ask the Rabbi”
session.
Rabbi Rebecca used American Sign Language
(ASL), EJ Cohen, a bilingual interpreter (ASL/
BSL), voiced over her talk, then Vicki, a hearing
BSL interpreter, interpreted it into BSL for the
audience!
It was a very complicated procedure, but it worked
— having two interpreters kept the conversation
and questions 昀氀owing smoothly.
There were about 15 people on Zoom which was
great, and lots of questions.
One question asked was about the Code of Jewish
Law and how it a昀昀ects Deaf people. It states that
a Cohen cannot be called up to give a blessing if
he cannot pronounce the words properly. This, of
course, excludes many Deaf people, which seems
unfair... but then it was written in the 16th century!
Rabbi Dubowe pointed out that some characters
in the bible were disabled. Moses, for example,
had a speech impediment, so he asked his
brother, Aaron, to speak for him to a crowd of
people.
Rabbi
Rebecca Dubowe
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