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[Jill] Hello everybody, welcome! So this is our
first video in our series for Deaf History Month! [Jenna] Exciting!
So I decided to ask
one of my friends, Ryan, who is Jewish
and Deaf and I thought this would be a good start. So I asked
her to find something, whether it's an important figure, or something
related to her identity. She actually found something really cool,
the first Deaf female rabbi.
Her name is Rebecca Dubowe.
So I'm gonna go ahead and let her talk
to you about what she found.
[Ryan] Hello, my name is Ryan.
Yes, this is Deaf History Month!
Jenna asked me to shared some knowledge I had,
or if I didn't know, to reasearch something. So I thought about it, did a
little research and I thought well let's so something about Judaism
because I'm Jewish. When researching I found something
really interesting. I know that there are a lot of rabbis,
many of them. Then I thought well what about Deaf rabbis? Yes there's still
quite a few. What about female Deaf rabbi's, because
I'm a woman and yes there are! There's the first
female Deaf rabbi and her name is
Rebecca Dubowe.
She first became a rabbi in 1993 at an American
reform seminary which is called the Hebrew
Union College Jewish Institute of Religion.
So she was born Deaf. She's very much invovled in Deaf culture. She's a fluent
signer and she can speak and read lips as well. She was born
and raised in California on the west coast in Los Angeles.
So I wanted to research what motivated her. What was her
passion for becmoing a rabbi? Well apparently her family when for summer vacation
to Israel and when she went there, she just fell in love
with Isreal. The community, the natural environment,
and especially when she was talking with her family members. Specifically she was talking
with one family memeber and they didn't speak English. They only spoke Hebrew.
Still she was able to understand their stories and that person
actually was a Holocaust survivor and it just really
stuck a chord with her. She know from that moment on, she wanted to get
involved with Hebrew studies and Judaism. She received her Bachelor's degree
from the University of Judaism
in Jewish Studies. She received her Master's in
Jewish Letter from the Hebrew Union College.
She explained her experience
within the program of becoming a rabbi.
The first year she went to Israel and it
was really challenging for her. She did not have a sign language interpreter
and there was really no accessibility there. So she really struggled.
She didn't have notes, and it was really hard
for her to try and lip-read what the teacher was saying. The professor
had a really large beard which made it even harder for her to be
able to read his lips. So she couldn't really see his mouth properly and she struggled.
But she made it through the first year,
and eventually graduated college.
It was really challenging applying to the different temples.
because she's Deaf. But she went ahead and applied to about
20 different places. She received back two,
one was from a reform college and one was from a more conservative. She decided
to pick the reform college just cause she felt it would be easier. Not necessarily
easier work, but she felt they would be more open-minded. That's where she
picked which was in New Jersey. It's called the
Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple.
She was there for 4 years
from 1993 until 1997.
Also, she become an assoicate rabbi while there. Once that was done,
she had a wonderful opportunity to become a rabbi back in California.
That was at the Temple Adat
Elohim
again in California. So she went there to California
and she ended up getting married.
Now has two daughters with her husband. All of them
are Deaf. They use sign langauge and use spoken English as well.
That's interesting. She become very involved within
the Deaf community. Very involved with a specific organization
called the Washington Society
of the Jewish Deaf which is here in DC.
That's where I'm from, the DC/Maryland/Virginia area.
So she comes for special conferences.
She will visit and often lead the shabbat services.
Different celebrations all together with this
organizationa and it's an honor to be involved in that group. She's also
on the board of another organization which is callled
the Women's Rabbinic Network.
That organizaiton is
specifically for female rabbis within the
reform Judaism to be involved with different aspects of the community,
They have a lot of different blogs.
It's actually very well know within the Jewish community and within the Deaf community who
are Jewish as well. So it's really fascinating. It's just very inspiring.
Thank you!
[Jill] Ok hopefully you enjoyed Ryan's video and all of the information. That was
really cool! I learned a lot about being Deaf and Jewish; different perspective.
So hopefully you guys learned something new. Maybe now you're motivated
to go out and do more research. Maybe if you are Jewish yourself it's really interesting
to learn more about your own culture and have a Deaf perspective as well!
So again hopefully you enjoyed. If you liked it, please
click the LIKE button. Remember we will have some things down
in the description so definitely check those out. Also, remember to
subscribe. [Jenna] Yes subscribe! [Jill] Yes we'll have more videos coming up soon.
Also, if you can, check out our
Pateron page and shoot us some support. We would love to be able to go
and expand our channel and your knowledge. See you in the next one. Bye!
[Jill] ...within the film industry who is Deaf. So that's cool.
Definitely will have more as well. [Jenna] We feel
it's important to learn about the different parts of Deaf history.