Many Baltimoreans have never met a deaf person; many others don’t know that we are fortunate to have a thriving community of people who are deaf and hard of hearing right here in our neighborhood. Those who witnessed the Our Way Shabbaton, which was held in Baltimore, now know that deaf people come in all shapes and stripes, just like hearing people. They have their own language and can fit into the community very well, when provided proper support: read, interpreters. In this second article of the series, Leah Caplan continues the story with her discovery of a world of Jewish deaf people. The talented artist and her geocaching husband Louis daven in Suburban Orthodox and send their three young daughters to Beth Tfiloh.
Here’s a joke that deaf people tell in sign language that always gets a resounding laugh: Three prisoners are sentenced to the electric chair. The first is a Christian. He sits down on the electric chair; they turn on the switch, but the machine doesn’t work, so they decide to set him free. Next a Jewish man prays very hard, sits down, and the chair does not work, so they let him free. Finally, an Arab man takes his turn to sit down, and again the chair does not work, but, someone catches on that the plug was not in the outlet!
Do you get the joke?
Many hearing people don’t. But consider this: I once watched a hearing comedian’s routine on a YouTube video, with captions, and tried to understand what was so funny. I read it a few times and didn’t think it was funny at all! I find deaf jokes funnier; it is the facial expressions and sign language combination that makes them more enjoyable, and I laugh.
This is just one example of the difference between Deaf and hearing culture.
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And they really are two cultures, like being from different countries. Indeed, there is a difference between being deaf and being Deaf. The lower case “d” simply describes a person who cannot hear. The upper case “D” denotes the culture that deaf people have created and function within. Like all cultures, it has its own language and ways of doing things. Deaf persons (or their parents) have to decide whether they want to live mainly in the speaking/hearing world – and be deaf – or whether they prefer to associate and communicate mainly with other deaf people – and be Deaf.
Some deaf people sign, some deaf people speak, and some use many variations in between. Each deaf person and each parent of a child with hearing loss makes his or her own decision about what type of hearing assistance is wanted and what mode(s) of communication to use. The important thing is for everyone to respect the decisions of others. Today, many children born with a hearing loss get a cochlear implant, use spoken English, and attend typical schools. Their experience of growing up is very different from mine.
I grew up with deaf parents and hearing siblings, attended a regular Bais Yaakov, and learned to lip read, speak, and sign. When I was a child, my grandmother discouraged me from associating with other deaf people, because she wanted me to learn to speak well and was afraid I would lose my good speech skills if I started signing with anyone other than my parents. But once I met deaf friends, as a teenager, I fell in love with the smooth communication we had; many of those friendships have lasted until today!
Deaf people tend to be friendly, warm, and welcoming. In fact, every time deaf people meet each other, they hug, even if they don’t know each other that well. When I’m with deaf people the communication flows easier. I am able to express anything that I want to say – everything from great jokes to serious discussions – and the feedback, which is important to me, is much clearer. I learn from the issues we talk about, and I feel free to bring up any topic I wish. I like to learn new things from deaf people, who have so much wisdom and life experience, especially the older people; truthfully, we can all learn from them. I laugh more with deaf people than when I’m with hearing folks. I find that many times, hearing people don’t understand a deaf person’s meaning, just as a deaf person tends to not understand hearing people’s nuances.
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I grew up knowing a lot of deaf people through my parents. But I met my first deaf friend when I received an Our Way – NCSY magazine. In it, I saw the name of a deaf girl who lived not far from me. I didn’t know there was anyone else my age in the community who was deaf! I read her short biography, where she mentioned that she wanted to meet new deaf friends. Although I was normally shy about meeting new faces, I told my mother that I wanted to meet that girl. Slowly we got to know each other. She was very outgoing and lively and very into Deaf culture. At first I felt quite awkward with her expressive use of American Sign Language, because I grew up using a very English version of sign language called PSE, Pidgin Signed English. (See sidebar.) She introduced me to lots of deaf people, who signed so quickly and with the intense animation that is characteristic of ASL that it took me a good year to get used to it and to understand them.
Once I discovered this new world, I met more and more deaf people my age. For a while, I also hung out with the secular deaf community, but their world was different from mine, since I grew up Orthodox. I’m more comfortable with any type of Jew, as we always have something in common.
Straddling the fence of the Deaf and hearing world can make for some difficult situations. I remember one occasion that stands out in my mind. I had made up to go shopping at Woodbury Commons Outlets in Upstate New York with my Deaf friend “Rochelle.” I needed clothes and other things. Meanwhile, “Chana,” a hearing classmate from high school, wanted to come along with us. I warned her that I was going with someone Deaf, who used ASL and didn’t speak at all. Chana didn’t know ASL but said she didn’t mind joining us. I was a little nervous about that; it was going to be a long trip, including the New York subway. Whom would I talk with the most, my Deaf friend or my hearing friend?
I found myself stuck in the middle; both of them kept asking me, “What did she say?” I interpreted, using my voice the whole time, and felt exhausted! Chana finally decided to give up and let me talk to my Deaf friend. But of course I felt bad that one of them was left out. After we arrived at the mall, she decided to go around by herself and let me hang out with my Deaf friend. I could tell she was very disappointed and wanted to be alone with me. At the same time, Rochelle wanted to hang out alone with me, too! I felt terrible about it. On the subway back home, I focused my attention on Chana. Thankfully, Rochelle didn’t care, as she was exhausted from the long day. I never forgot that incident. They were trying to communicate but didn’t understand each other at all – and I understood both of them. It was very challenging and very stressful, and I vowed I would never put myself in that position again!
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I had always been interested in art, and after high school I attended Parsons School of Design, where I earned an AAS degree in illustration and graphic design. Sometimes I had sign language interpreters, but sometimes they didn’t show up on time! I would struggle to follow the class and then approach the professor afterwards to clarify what I had missed. Thankfully, a lot of the course work was visual, and the professors used demonstrations, so that made it easier to grasp the concepts.
In my early 20s, I got involved in activities with deaf Israelis and went on many trips with them. We went to the Golan Heights, Ashkelon, and kibbutzim, and also visited several Deaf clubs. From there, I got involved with the Israeli Deaf community. Hebrew sign language, ISL, wasn’t hard for me to use because of my Israeli father, and when I did not know a sign in ISL, I used body language to convey my message; it worked out just great.
Another incident where I found myself trying to balance two worlds happened in Israel. One deaf American man was struggling to understand ISL He knew that I understood both languages and took advantage of me to interpret from ISL to PSE. The worst part was when an Israeli deaf rabbi gave an interesting lecture and I had to translate signs from ISL to PSE. It went on for 30 long minutes! It was not easy, but it was a great experience for me. I’m glad I met those wonderful people. They helped me so much, as we traveled together and they showed me such interesting places and told me about the history of Israel.
Now I’m able to understand ASL and ISL (Israel Sign Language) very well, even though I’m a PSE signer. Having met so many different people, I feel more confident in my communication skills.
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Back in the U.S., I got involved with the Jewish Deaf Singles Registry (JDSR). This was an organization of the Orthodox Union that tried to match single Jewish deaf people with each other. For six years I was on the board, helping to plan events and encouraging singles to come. I was not involved in arranging the shidduchim, but I know that a lot of time was spent making sure the couple had similar communication methods. Because there are so many variations of oralism (spoken language) and manualism (sign language), it was important to ascertain that there was some common communication method they could use together comfortably. Since the group is only for single people, I finally left the board and the group after I got married. This is how it happened:
We had planned a JDSR apple picking event in New Jersey. However, when we got there it started raining. We had to think of another option quickly, because we had 25 deaf singles waiting for an “event,” and we were stuck! One of the leaders asked me to ask the farmer to call a local bowling alley. One hard of hearing guy told them that he was willing to call himself, but the leader said, “Let Leah call for us.” This guy was shocked and stood back. I made the call to the bowling alley and got the address and group rate. The hard of hearing guy was surprised and speechless. He hadn’t realized that I was able to talk on the phone. Up to that point, when I was around him, I had always signed without using my voice. He thought I was completely deaf and non-speaking. A few years later, he married me!
Yael Zelinger, coordinator for JADE: Jewish Advocates for Deaf Education, a program of the Louise D. and Morton J. Macks Center for Jewish Education, contributed to this article.
Sidebar:
What Is Sign Language?
Sign language is a means of visual communication that has arisen naturally wherever there have been groups of deaf people. It has its own grammar and syntax, and uses manual communication and body language, as opposed to voice-generated sound patterns, to convey meaning. This involves simultaneously combining handshapes; orientation and movement of the hands, arms, or body; and facial expressions to express a speaker’s thoughts. Signs usually represent complete ideas, as well as individual words, but finger spelling can be incorporated as well. Contrary to common belief, there is no one universal sign language. Each country has its own sign language, and hundreds of sign languages exist around the world.
ASL – American Sign Language – emerged as a language at the American School for the Deaf (ASD), founded in 1817, in Hartford, Connecticut. It has its origins in French Sign Language (FSL) but was combined with various village sign languages and native sign systems to make a distinct language. The dominant sign language of deaf communities in the United States and English-speaking Canada, ASL also serves as a lingua franca in other parts of the world. It is estimated that from 250,000 to 500,000 Americans use ASL.
SEE – Signing Exact English – strives to be an exact representation of English vocabulary and grammar. It is one of a number of such systems in use in English-speaking countries. It is related to Seeing Essential English (SEE-I), a manual sign system created in 1971, based on the syllables of English words. SEE-II models much of its sign vocabulary from American Sign Language (ASL), but modifies the hand shapes used in ASL in order to use the handshape of the first letter of the corresponding English word.
PSE – Pidgin Signed English – is a combination of ASL and English. Culturally Deaf people, signing with each other, usually use ASL, but many people (deaf or hearing) who learn to sign later in life, after learning spoken English, do not sign strictly in ASL. Instead, they use a mixture of ASL and English that is known as PSE.
ISL – Israeli Sign Language – is the most commonly used sign language in the deaf community of Israel. During the 1940s, ISL became the language of a well-established community of Jewish deaf people in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Here are some examples of the difference between English, PSE and ASL:
English: The boy is deaf.
PSE: boy deaf (nod)
ASL: boy (point) deaf (nod)
English: Don’t sit on the table.
PSE: (shake head) sit table
ASL: table (palm down) you (shake head) sit (on the hand)
