Yad HaChazakah: The Jewish Disability Empowerment Centre

Yad HaChazakah — Working with you to empower yourself

At Yad HaChazakah — The Jewish Disability Empowerment Center, Inc. we believe in you. We want to see you discover and use your personal strengths, abilities, and resources to take more control over the direction and quality of your life.

We can work with you to empower yourself to live, love, learn, work, worship, and strive toward leadership in your community.

Yad HaChazakah-JDEC provides:

Personal coaching
Peer networking and support
Advocacy and resource navigation
Topical workshops
Disability awareness and policy advisement

It's time that we, Jews with obvious and hidden disabilities, make our presence felt, our voices heard, and our strengths sought in our communities.
— Sharon Shapiro, Founding Director, Yad HaChazakah-JDEC.

How is Yad HaChazakah-JDEC Different?

Yad HaChazakah-JDEC is unique among other Jewish disability organizations; we are led primarily by both Jews with obvious and Jews with hidden disabilities or ongoing health conditions. More than half of our board members have disabilities or chronic health conditions; since WE are the experts in living with disability, we are often best suited to support each other.

Serving Jews from all cultures and backgrounds, Yad HaChazakah-JDEC is governed and operated in accordance with Orthodox precepts. Together, we work to develop your capacities and form a network of resources for you to be able to:

Manage your home and daily living activities
Date, marry, and raise children
Work or volunteer
Access learning opportunities and fulfill mitzvos
Participate fully in and contribute to your community

We provide assistance according to Rambam’s (Maimonides’) teaching; the highest level of tzedakah is to strengthen each other’s capacities to live with dignity and respect. We do this by working with you to build your skills and access resources that will help you for a lifetime.

Click Here to download a Word Document of our brochure, compatible with Voice Recorder and automatic readers.

Yad HaChazakah-JDEC accepts credit card donations under FJC, a foundation of donor advised funds through the auspices of JustGive.org.
Please click the "DONATE NOW" button and be sure to type "YAD HaCHAZAKAH" in the Designation Field at the bottom of the page, so that FJC will know how to apply their gift upon receipt.
In addition, donors may decide to give FJC their names, e-mail and mailing addresses.
Please note that Yad HaChazakah-JDEC will only have access to and be able to acknowledge donors who DO provide their contact information to FJC.
Otherwise FJC and Yad HaChazakah-JDEC will receive the gift from JustGive with the donor listed as "Anonymous".

In the words of Rabbi Benjamin Hecht,
Rabbinic Advisor to YAD-JDEC:

"We all need each other, some more and some less. The obligation to care calls upon each of us to help one another. The inalienable right of the human being to possess and maintain dignity demands of us to ensure that our caring does not stifle the individual—belittling him or her—but rather empowers the individual. As we care for another, we must ensure that we safeguard that other person’s dignity and that our acts of giving have the intent to empower everyone to meet their Divine potential and full capacities as individuals. This is the Torah directive – to care and respect."

Read Rabbi Hecht's article: "A Torah Response to Jews with Disabilities" at nishma.org


	YAD HaCHAZAKAH - The Jewish Disability Empowerment Center, Inc. c/o Bikkurim 111 Eighth Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10011-5201 Phone: 212-284-6936 [Voice and 711 TTY Relay Service], Email: info@yad-jdec.org