Handicapped Accessibility

Our neighborhood synagogue has expanded and been renovated.  One change is a new front door, and this one is set up for a wheelchair.  Actually, we have two wheelchair ramps.  There's one in the back to a "room" which is partially set up as a second Ezrat Nashim, Women's Section.  (In Orthodox Torah-based synagogues men and women sit separately.)  The main Ezrat Nashim is a gallery/balcony.  The stairs leading up to it are too difficult for many, young and old, with babies and physical handicaps/restrictions.

My son is opening a sports bar-grill in Jerusalem, and there, too, will be facilities for the handicapped.  Today, it's the norm.

For those wondering why the Israel Museum is undergoing very major renovations and the only indoor exhibits are in the Shrine of the Book complex, it's to straighten the floor, make it all one level, instead of that once trendy step up-step down from room to room.  In the 1960's when the museum was planned and constructed nobody thought of easy equal access.  The post-World War Two world was young and healthy.  The disabled were hidden and made to feel guilty for being different.

Actually, Israel was relatively good to the handicapped in some ways.  In the 1970's I went to a concert in Jerusalem with a friend who needed a wheelchair.  She had bought us two tickets and also told them that she'd need a place to sit in her wheelchair.  She was given a great spot for her wheelchair and a comfortable plastic chair was brought for me to sit next to her.  When she tried to give them the tickets, they told her that it was unnecessary, since a certain amount of space was allocated for the handicapped for free, as a service.  I don't know what the practice is today, but she was amazed.

When we made aliyah in 1970, there were few elevators in Israel.  Even large medical clinics required the ill and handicapped to walk up and down stairs.  I'm sure nothing is perfect today, but the situation has improved.