Families Return from First-EverAccessible Israel Trip

Seventy-eight-year old Vivienne Kalman of Weston never thought she’d be able to visit Israel again. For Kalman – who first visited the Jewish state three decades ago as a Hadassah activist – a typical, fast-paced Israel tour seemed “quite undoable” for a senior with special healthcare needs.

With the help of CJP and the Jewish Vocational Service’s Yesodot (“Foundations”) program, Kalman was able to realize her dream of visiting Israel one more time. As part of Yesodot’s first-ever “accessible” family trip to Israel, Kalman was joined by her daughter and teenage grandson for a 10-day journey of bonding and discovery.

“Being here with three generations of my family is something I will never forget,” Kalman said. “I never imagined I’d be able to swim in the Dead Sea again, see Jerusalem or revisit Israel through my grandson’s eyes.”

Founded in 2000, Yesodot’s model holds that families can best determine their own needs, and all programs are family-centered and family-run. Almost 200 Jewish families from more than 30 Greater Boston communities have been served by Yesodot, and agency leaders strive to expand the support network to thousands of local families with disabilities or special healthcare needs.

Three years in the making, Yesodot’s first family trip to Israel was organized by Sue Wolf-Fordham, the agency’s founding director. In addition to two exploratory trips to Israel and meticulous planning for accessibility with trip organizer Israel For All, Wolf-Fordham worked with sponsors and partners including the Ruderman Family Foundation and CJP’s Boston-Haifa Connection.

“For most of our Yesodot families, a trip to Israel with the long flight and host of unknowns can be quite daunting,” Wolf-Fordham said. “We made a collective effort so the four families on this pilot trip would be able to enjoy Israel like any other family. We want other families with disabilities or special healthcare needs to know that a visit to Israel is something they, too, can share.”

“This trip has been a real eye-opener and allowed me to live and learn with some of our Yesodot families,’ said Yesodot’s new director, Leah Abrams. “What our team learned from planning this trip has relevance for hundreds of Jewish families in Greater Boston, and we’re hoping to make accessibility a larger piece of our local Israel mission agenda.”

A trip highlight for Wolf-Fordham was watching her 15-year old son, visit the Kotel for the first time and connect with his heritage. “This is the greatest thing I have ever done,” he said. “I feel amazing inside that I was able to do this great mitzvah and come to Jerusalem.”

Like the trip’s other young people, the teen particularly enjoyed an action-packed day of ropes courses and team-building activities conducted with families from Haifa’s Ofer School for autistic children. In keeping with the trip’s spirit of full inclusion and participation, every member of the group enjoyed a host of challenges – from 78-year-old Vivienne down to 7-year-old Aviva.

“Everyone on this trip has been so wonderful to each other and we’ve become one family,” said  Jo-Louise Allen, who participated with her husband and two children. “If not for this trip, I don’t know when our family would have been able to visit Israel.”

In addition to visits to the Dead Sea, Massada and Jerusalem’s Old City, participants made their own pita bread at a Talmudic village, rode donkeys and met with players from the Israel Baseball League. A student from Haifa’s Gordon College of Education and a specially-trained security guard/medic added an Israeli flavor to the group, teaching the children local games and songs.

“On a trip like this, our goal is for every single person in the group to be included,” said Israel for All founder Eli Meiri. “This is a wonderful group that has worked together to prove that no obstacles should stand in the way of families coming to Israel.”