Jacob Salem speaks six languages. Yet if he walked into a typical synagogue service in either of the countries where he grew up — America or Israel — he might still get lost.
Salem is deaf. And a synagogue that offers interpretation into sign language so a deaf person can follow can be hard to find, he says.
Salem is out to change that, by influencing the up-and-coming generation of students who might someday become deaf Jewish leaders — students at Gallaudet University, the nation’s preeminent school for deaf students.
“This is a huge issue,” he said. “They lose interest in Jewish life, because there are no interpreters.”
Salem is the first deaf person to ever serve as a director of a Hillel, according to a spokesperson for the worldwide organization that hosts programming for Jews on college campuses.
For Jewish college students at any university, Hillel is very likely their main tie to their religion after they leave their parents’ house and before they join a synagogue or another Jewish community as adults. For students at Gallaudet, Hillel might be even more influential in helping them connect to Judaism in a way they never could anywhere else. As the new director of Gallaudet Hillel, Salem is trying to make those connections possible.
“I can see they’re Jewish. I have Jewish radar,” he joked. The students whom he takes under his wing — about 45 active Hillel participants and growing — sometimes tell him that they grew up with a strong connection to their religion, but others felt left out or simply less informed than they’d like to be.
Salem, who knows English, Hebrew, American Sign Language and Israeli Sign Language plus a healthy dose of Latin and Spanish, can fill in the gaps, especially for those who grew up at synagogue Hebrew schools that didn’t provide the resources to teach deaf kids.
“He is extremely knowledgeable about Judaism, and helps me broaden my knowledge base,” graduate student Lena Jenny wrote in an email. “From spending time with him and Gallaudet Hillel, I feel more prepared to see eye to eye with a more rich spectrum of Jews, especially Deaf Jews.”
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