Fortunate individuals among us have discovered an addiction that’s actually good for you. Better than chocolate or coffee, once you’ve experienced Yachad, you’re instantly, and healthfully, hooked. It becomes an essential part of your life, your family, and sometimes – your job.
Yachad-smitten since high school, Rabbi Jay Weinstein, rav of the Young Israel of East Brunswick, New Jersey, now has his entire shul community passionately involved and clamoring for more.
During his initial four years of leadership, Rabbi Weinstein instituted a Special Needs committee that has successfully integrated children and teens into myriad shul activities including Shabbat groups, nursery school and, starting this summer, Camp Keshet, the first day camp in the tri-state area with a Yachad program. The community also sponsors several well-attended Yachad events each year, including annual Rayim Yachad Shabbatonim for adults over the age of twenty-six.
“I could give a drashah (sermon) with a message about inclusion, but it’s not the same as experiencing it firsthand,” says Rabbi Weinstein. “Holding a Yachad program in our shul, connecting with Yachad members, benefitting from their appreciation of the world around them, their Yiddishkeit, is a much more powerful way to educate.”
And he should know; that’s precisely what captured him, and kept him coming back to Yachad. As a teen growing up in Miami Beach, he never missed South Florida Yachad chapter’s monthly events. His fervor continued beyond high school. While an undergraduate student at Yeshiva University, he served as chapter coordinator for Rayim Yachad in Brooklyn. While studying for ordination he earned an additional degree, a masters in special education. The summer after college graduation, while serving as a counselor in the Yachad bunk at Camp Morasha, Rabbi Weinstein met his future wife, Sharon, also a counselor. He went on to run the first vocational program designing jobs for older members with special needs at Camp Moshava.
When it came time to find a rabbinical position, Rabbi Weinstein’s attachment to Yachad and commitment to inclusion spoke loudly and clearly on his resume. As assistant rabbi of Shaare Tefillah in Dallas, Texas, with the senior rabbi’s encouragement, he launched a thriving Yachad chapter and served as chapter coordinator. Unsurprisingly, now as the rav of Young Israel of East Brunswick, he also assisted with the opening of a Middlesex County (New Jersey) Yachad chapter which drew 120 participants at the synagogue’s most recent Rayim Yachad Shabbaton this past February.
“It’s an inspiration to watch him at a Shabbaton,” says Melissa Rosen, director of the youth department and Camp Keshet. “He’s so at ease; he engages immediately and joyously. Our adult congregants and their children see that and model it. Inclusion has become part of our culture.”
Rabbi Weinstein and Mrs. Weinstein first met at Camp Morasha.
Debbie Schaulewicz, East Brunswick resident for twenty-eight years and chairperson of the Special Needs Committee, concurs. “So many families volunteered to host Yachad members that we had to turn many of them down,” says Schaulewicz. “Friday night Yachad participants ate at their hosts’ home. On Shabbos afternoon the community ate together with the Yachad members. Rabbi Weinstein wanted everyone to mingle with the Yachad members and advisors. This way, it’s very personal.”
Ensuring that Yachad members feel actively involved in Shabbat services, Rabbi Weinstein sees to it that Yachad members and advisors are given aliyot and encourages them to publicly share divrei Torah (insights based on Torah passages). “The most important thing to Rabbi Weinstein is that they feel welcomed and truly part of the community,” says Schaulewicz. “Participants keep telling us they feel so at home in East Brunswick they can’t wait to come back next year.”
Rabbi Weinstein’s infectious devotion to Yachad continues to touch lives – past, present and future. “When my husband got up to give a drashah at a recent Shabbaton, one of the members shouted, ‘Hey Jay!’ He remembered him as his camp counselor and Rayim Yachad coordinator,” says Sharon. “He values making a difference for others, to include them and make their lives richer. His idea of inclusion is that it’s a lifelong goal.”
The shul’s children are growing up with inclusion as a normal part of life. Mrs. Weinstein reports that her seven-year-old daughter treasures her friendship with a girl with Down syndrome. “Their peers are their peers; there’s no separation in their minds,” says Rosen. “It’s very beautiful to see.”
Apparently, the rabbi’s extensive inclusion efforts are also making a difference in his adult congregants’ lives. “We’re all so much more aware of the special needs population and what we can do to include them,” says Schaulewicz. “We’re more sensitive and open-minded; and we’re better people for it.”
Rabbi Weinstein plans to spread the Yachad riches to other synagogues, to show them how it can uplift an entire kehillah. “It’s our responsibility to make our communities and shuls open to people of all abilities,” he says. He cites Dr. Jeffrey Lichtman, international director of Yachad, whom he calls his personal role model: “Don’t say we can’t do it; give all the reasons why we can.” An exemplary inclusion champion, Rabbi Weinstein never runs out of reasons why he and his community can. 
Bayla Sheva Brenner is a staff writer at the Orthodox Union.
This is an article from Belong Magazine 2014. For more information, or to receive your own copy contact belong@ou.org