Abstract

This chapter explores questions about Judaism, disability, and technology from the vantage point of a group of documentary film-makers and other activists concerned with the place of the physically and mentally disabled within modern Ashkenazic Jewish community. The chapter examines a series of films that document religious, scientific, and popular conceptions of Jewish community as a shared genetic heritage, the ways such evidence has been used to silence or hide the presence of disabled Jews, and the strategies deployed by activists to re-imagine Jewish kinship and to redefine the notion of the human as made in God’s image. Examples discussed include: Liebe Perla, a film about a short-statured Holocaust survivor; Praying with Lior, which focuses on the religious life of a Jewish boy with Down syndrome; and the recent proliferation of Internet-mediated forums for “cyber-kinship” that are enabling Jews born with genetic diseases to network with one another and to achieve a visible presence that is transforming Jewish public culture.

Share