Randi Friedman, a nationally certified provider of open captioning, or realtime translation, will help Bnai Keshet in Montclair make its High Holy Day services accessible to those who are deaf or hearing impaired.
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September 9, 2009
For the second consecutive year, Bnai Keshet, the Reconstructionist synagogue in Montclair, will provide High Holy Day services accessible to the deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing impaired. It is one of very few synagogues providing this service in New Jersey and possibly across the country.
The synagogue will use for the first time a nationally certified provider of a technology system that translates the spoken word into readable text displayed on a screen, all in real time.
The effort is part of the synagogue’s commitment to welcoming all Jews to pray, according to Rabbi Darby Leigh, assistant religious leader at Bnai Keshet, who also happens to be profoundly deaf. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 17 percent of American adults have some degree of hearing loss; in New Jersey, according to the state’s Division of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, there are more than 800,000 NJ residents with varying degrees of hearing loss, ranging from mild to profound.
“While we say we want to have an open door, we do not have it if we are not making it possible for Jews of varying abilities and disabilities to come” to services, said Leigh.
The rabbi said the effort is not just about helping the person with hearing issues; it’s about becoming a “whole” community.
“The mainstream Jewish community is not whole, full, or complete if we do not give every Jew who wants to be here the ability to be here,” he said.
Leigh said he resents the attitude that accommodations are provided as a favor to those with disabilities.
“I’m very tired of being told, ‘I’ll do you a favor.’ No. It’s what is right and what we are morally obligated to do if we are part of a morally sensitive tradition. The whole prophetic tradition, that we take care of the widow and orphan, is otherwise swept aside.”
The technology being used at Bnai Keshet is known as Communication Access Realtime Translation, or CART, also known as open captioning.
The CART provider, usually a court reporter, types what is being said into a steno machine, and the software translates it immediately into written English for the recipient to see on a screen.
Although CART services are available more broadly in churches, few synagogues have used them.
As with any kind of translations, CART faces its own unique challenges in the synagogue setting (see sidebar). However, as one might see on a TV series, if there is music, the CART provider can say, “Choir sings softly in the background, words on page 41” or the like. Similarly, if there is a Torah reading or any Hebrew reading, the provider indicates what is going on, with page numbers when available. That way, said Leigh, people know where the rest of the worshipers are, “and they do not have to wonder if they are with the larger community or not.”
And, he added, if the rabbi tells a joke and everybody laughs, the CART reporter can write “laughter in the room,” so someone who can’t hear that or is not aware it is happening can at least read and know what’s going on. “It does not give the deaf person the equivalent of the hearing person’s experience of synagogue, but it gives the deaf person a whole lot of access,” said Leigh.
The service is provided this year by the Open Captioners, a Montclair business owned by town resident Randi Friedman, a nationally certified CART provider. She is providing the services at a reduced rate, and Bnai Keshet also received a grant from MetroWest ABLE, a consortium of lay leaders and professionals representing the special-needs community.
Last year, the effort was sponsored by the Jewish Deaf and Hearing Impaired Council, which may still offer support again this year.
CART at Bnai Keshet
Communication Access Realtime Translation will be available at Bnai Keshet in Montclair for services on erev Rosh Hashana, Friday, Sept. 18; the first day of Rosh Hashana, Saturday, Sept. 19; erev Yom Kippur, Sunday, Sept. 27; and Yom Kippur, Sept. 28.
Members and nonmembers are welcome. A donation is requested, and reservations are required. Those who wish to use the CART system will be able to obtain seats in a section ensuring good visibility of the screen.
The erev and first-day Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services will be held at the Central Presbyterian Church, on the corner of Park Street and Claremont Avenue in Montclair. Services for the second day of Rosh Hashana will be held at the synagogue at 99 South Fullerton Ave. Young Family and Junior Congregation services, as well as child care, will be available. For additional information, contact 973-746-4889 or bnaikeshet@bnaikeshet.org, or visit www.bnaikeshet.org.
‘Knitting humanity together’
THIS YEAR, Randi Friedman has declined an invitation to join her cousin for Rosh Hashana. “I have to tell him I’ll be captioning in Montclair,” she told NJJN. The Montclair resident, a nationally certified provider of CART services, will be offering open captioning for people with hearing loss at Bnai Keshet in Montclair, together with a colleague. It’s something she’s done for nearly a decade at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in Manhattan.
She believes Bnai Keshet is the first synagogue in New Jersey, and the second in the country, to offer this service.
A former court reporter, she left that field because she “was tired of struggling over money and egos.” She does open captioning full time, something, she said, that “gives my life so much meaning.
“I feel like I can change the world, one person at a time.”
Raised in a Jewish household she described as falling somewhere between Reform and Conservative, she became disaffected from synagogue life as a teenager. She has no affiliation with any synagogue, yet she remains deeply connected to Judaism and Jewish values.
Asked about how she feels working on the High Holy Days, she offered a complicated answer that reflects both her understanding that for some people working precludes observance and her underlying belief that what she does in that work is completely in sync with Jewish values. “I am getting paid and it is a service,” she said, “but it is work I believe in. Human relations is part of Judaism. If communication is blocked and there’s no bridge, humanity can’t be knit together.”
Ironically, it is her basic comfort level with synagogue services that enables her to provide CART services to Bnai Keshet in a way that Christian colleagues can’t or won’t.
“Speed and accuracy count, but the more you know what people are talking about, the better you can be at your job,” she explained. Her preparation involves what she calls “building up a job dictionary” not only to increase her familiarity with the concepts likely to be discussed but also to preprogram her software. So, for example, if she knows someone will be discussing “the Shechina” — the female attributes of God — at High Holy Day services, she can enter shorthand that her software will recognize and translate the phrase appropriately.
For someone who is not Jewish, the learning curve would be much higher in carrying out the High Holy Days job. A non-Jew, she said, “would have to Google ‘Days of Awe,’ ‘Book of Life,’ ‘Yom Kippur,’ ‘Rosh Hashana,’” just for starters.
— JOHANNA GINSBERG
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