Two laureates, one woman

Tamara Barnea asks that nothing "sappy" be written about her. She is not eager to talk about herself, and focuses the interview on her professional activities. She is willing to say little about the Israel Prize award ceremony she will be attending on Independence Day - as the wife of journalist Nachum Barnea, the recipient of the Israel Prize in Communications, and as the director of one of the key units of the Joint Distribution Committee, which received the prize for its unique contribution to society and the state.

"Two laureates and one woman," she says. "I made two excellent choices in my life - one 35 years ago when I married Nachum, and the second 21 years ago when I came to work at the Joint." Her life operates according to two clocks with very different paces. "One ticks fast, at the pace of journalism, the news and politics, and the other based on long-term planning, unaffected by the frequent changes in the news."

The second clock requires a lot of patience, something Barnea has in abundance. For more than a decade, she has been managing the Joint-Israel's department of disabilities and rehabilitation, which develops programs and services to enable handicapped people to live an independent life.

"The last decade certainly deserves to be called the decade of the disabled," says Barnea. The start of the awakening began with the first strike by the disabled in 1999, followed by the second strike two years later, the approval of the accessibility and equal opportunity laws in the Knesset and the development of community living facilities, she says.

Barnea also discerns greater attentiveness to the plight of the disabled. This is reflected in the media's willingness to report on disabled people, in disabled people's willingness to be exposed to the public and in the establishment's willingness to let the disabled be involved in decisions that concern them. As an example, Barnea cites a Jerusalem bus stop that was located in front of the first center for independent living for the disabled. The bus stop impeded access to the facility, and the disabled residents met with the neighbors to explain the center and its objectives, and approached the municipality and the Egged bus cooperative. Within a month, the bus stop was moved.

"The message the disabled are bringing is not one of wretchedness, but one of ability, of power and of a desire to integrate, work, ride a bicycle and win medals," says Barnea.

Self-help

One of the most significant accomplishments of the disabled is the emergence of organizations working on their behalf, she says. "No one is better suited to bringing about social changes for the disabled than the disabled themselves," she says. The disabled have also managed to mobilize political, media and public support for their fight. "They simply turned the issue into a hot topic," says Barnea. She even sees the fights between the different organizations in a positive light, and considers this part of the process of maturing and gaining independence.

Despite the progress, Barnea says the disabled face a severe shortage of community services. There is a well-developed system of institutions, but most disabled persons live in the community, in their parents' home or in their own home, "and they lack services, especially in the periphery."

In recent years, the Joint has developed "supporting neighborhoods" where disabled people live in their own homes and for NIS 60 a month subscribe to services including an emergency hotline, an on-call community helper, professionals such as electricians to conduct repairs, medical services, social activities and more.

"The disabled person is less dependent on a caretaker or relative," says Barnea. Today there are 12 such neighborhoods, and in the wake of the war, funds were raised to set up five more. Barnea hopes to see at least 50 such neighborhoods countrywide.

"As far as services for the disabled and how they are treated, Jewish society is progressive, although it still lags about 10 to 15 years behind Western countries," says Barnea. "But Arab society lags 10 to 15 years behind Jewish society in its attitude toward the disabled and the services it provides them."

Recently, the Joint launched a program called Misiri (Masa in Hebrew) aimed at strengthening associations for the disabled, informing them about their rights and exposing them to technologies and aids that can maximize their independence.

The program includes a mobile facility that demonstrates the use of aids suited to common Arab lifestyles, including a rail that enables a person to rise from his mattress.

The program's participants include Druze, Bedouin and Arab organizations, official bodies and nongovernmental organizations, and disabled representatives. At the request of the latter, the program is also working to change stances in Arab society through social and informational activities.

Exposure is key

The key to changing attitudes in Arab society is exposure to disabled people, Barnea says. "I too had fears and stereotypes before I started working in the field," she says. "My personal contact with the disabled person 'obliterates' the handicap and highlights the person. It's a tool you have to work with."

For 11 years, Barnea worked at the Joint's Brookdale Institute researching old age and health policy, and meanwhile managed the organization's Middle East program, which promotes Israeli-Palestinian cooperation on health matters. During the course of her work, Barnea edited, with Dr. Rafiq Husseini, the book "The Virus Doesn't Stop at the Checkpoint," a collection of articles describing historic and contemporary cooperation between Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian health networks, and the damage caused by the ongoing conflict.

Barnea's dream, which she hopes to realize in the coming years, is a transportation system that enables the disabled to take care of their own errands, attend social events, and go to school and work. She envisions a staff comprised of a transportation expert from the Technion, a logistics expert from the Israel Defense Forces and representatives of the tourism companies and transportation cooperatives. Together they would build a giant fleet of vehicles to serve disabled people all over the country and ease their path to independent living.

This system will mostly require administrative coordination, the resolution of insurance and safety issues, and volunteers, and will not require a particularly large financial investment.

"Good results can be achieved with a little work," says Barnea. "It's enough to place a ramp and make a curb accessible, and you've given a disabled person the world and then some."

For her, the Israel Prize reflects recognition of three elements of the Joint's activities: its professional contribution to developing social programs; its commitment to children, the elderly, the poor, new immigrants and the disabled; and its connection between Israel and worldwide Jewish communities.

"Through the Joint, I'm exposed to humanitarian activity on behalf of other communities and see their needs. This brings mutual responsibility, such as when there was a crisis in Argentina and we cut our budgets in order to assist them. When there was a war in Israel, we received funds from communities abroad," says Barnea.

Barnea is excited about the upcoming ceremony, scheduled for the Jerusalem Theater. Her daughter Shlomit will be arriving from the United States, and her son Uri, who was just discharged from the army, will be sitting beside her. Her oldest son, Yoni, who was killed in a 1996 terrorist attack in Jerusalem, will be missing. The family was completely surprised when Nachum Barnea received the prize, she says. They had never even considered that possibility.

"In terms of the Joint, the surprise was not so great. I always had hoped that it would receive a prize one day; I just thought it would happen when it turned 100. It happened at the age of 93," Barnea says.