Understanding and embracing neurodiversity is this year’s theme for Women of Beth El’s Board of Social Action. About 45 community members gathered at Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County on Nov. 17 for a screening of the HBO documentary “How to Dance in Ohio” (2015).
The film follows a group of autistic young adults in Columbus, Ohio — mainly 16-year-old Marideth Bridges, 19-year-old Caroline McKenzie and 22-year-old Jessica Sullivan — who spend 12 weeks preparing for their first spring formal.
Jana Singer, the vice president of social action on the Women of Beth El board, said board members chose “How to Dance in Ohio” because a number of them had already seen the film, but more importantly for its message.
“It’s very compelling,” Singer said of the film. “You see the challenges that these young people face, but you also see the triumphs. They have the dance, and that’s very moving.”
The film’s director, Alexandra Shiva, echoed this sentiment, saying that although the spring formal — the end result of months of preparation — is “lovely” and positive, the “biggest challenge is how do we show you as a viewer that for Marideth to just say ‘Hi,’ that’s an accomplishment.”
The film showed the autistic young adults practicing social skills in a group setting. A therapist covered the step-by-step process of planning the dance, what to say when one meets somebody and how to make a friend.
“These young people were working so hard to do things that so many of us take for granted, and with the right support — somebody used the word scaffolding, which is kind of what the therapist was doing [in the film] — people really can do these things, so maybe it is up to the community to provide more of the scaffolding,” Singer said.
She added that it was good to see the young adults’ families in addition to their experiences with autism in order to offer a holistic view of their lives.
Singer said the screening of “How to Dance in Ohio” was necessary because “any of us” know someone who is neurodiverse or someone who has a neurodiverse child or family member. She added that some members of the Beth El community are neurodiverse, and that it’s important that these individuals feel just as welcomed and part of the community as anyone else.
Attendees of the screening discussed the film and its themes afterwards, led by a committee member who is active in disability advocacy. Some attendees shared personal experiences of being neurodiverse and others shared their grandchildren’s experiences.
Film is one of the best avenues to facilitate discussion, Singer said. This year is the third year that the social action board has done programming in this format, with a film followed by a group conversation.
“Sometimes, pictures are worth a thousand words,” she said. “It’s just a really good way of getting people engaged and encouraging them to talk about issues that come up in the film.”
In addition to sharing personal experiences, some attendees expressed disagreement with how one of the therapists handled a situation with Sullivan, one of the documentary’s main subjects who works at a bakery with an autistic workforce. The scene shows a therapist calling the 22-year-old out for her tone in an interaction with her supervisor, which makes Sullivan cry.
Some audience members voiced that there were gentler ways for the therapist to approach the situation, whereas others said it was appropriate and realistic for the therapist to show the young woman how to act appropriately in a work setting.
“People were divided on whether the therapist had been too harsh or whether the therapist was doing her job of saying, ‘This is what the world of work looks like, and you need to adapt to it,’” Singer said. “It was a good discussion.”
Part of the reason the social action committee brought “How to Dance in Ohio” to Beth El is because inclusion of all is inherent to Jewish values.
“Judaism values each individual,” Singer said. “There’s a lot of emphasis on how every person stood on Mount Sinai or every person should be embraced by the community. I think there’s much more of an understanding [today] that everybody is unique in their own way.”
In honoring that value, Singer said board members have plans for new initiatives and efforts to make Beth El more accessible to neurodiverse community members, which will be finalized in February 2025. She noted that the rabbis at Beth El have already taken steps to ensure that b’nai mitzvah are accessible, and wants to build upon those efforts.
“There’s been a lot of ways in which the synagogue has been welcoming on an individual, family level, and I think we want to take it to the next level and make [accessibility for neurodiverse individuals] a synagogue value and really embracing this and viewing it in the context of the Jewish values that the synagogue emphasizes,” Singer said.
February marks Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month, so Women of Beth El’s Board of Social Action will then host the second part of their program: an educational panel discussion with three or four experts to discuss ways in which the Jewish community can be more embracing and inclusive of neurodiverse individuals. The experts will include a rabbi, a psychologist and either a neurodiverse community member or the parent of a neurodiverse individual.
“There’s a lot of new learning, and I think it’s important to put that out into the community,” Singer said.
