Living with Disabilities

Throughout the Torah, we are instructed to move through the world with an extraordinary degree of mindfulness to the experience of others; we, too, were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt. We, as Jews, are implored by the divine to notice that which others might not observe and to advocate for one another because we know what it is to be somehow exceptional.

My Hebrew name is Emunah, and I have autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).

Emily Ladau is a Jewish disability rights activist, writer, storyteller, and digital communications consultant. We sat down with Emily to chat about how Jewish values inform her work and what employers, employees, and coworkers can do to proactively affirm people with disabilities in the workplace.