Inclusion

Penina Weinberg is TBB's Disability Visibility Advocate. Penina's goals are two fold: (1) to bring visibility to vibrant disability culture and the wisdom of disability Torah; (2) to organize a list of unmet access needs at TBB, along with plans of action. 

To those ends, Penina would love to hear from any and all members regarding unmet needs and/or interest in learning opportunities, and/or requests to help out, and/or for more information on what brings her to this role.  Penina can be reached at DisabilityVisibility@templebnaibrith.org or in person often on Shabbat mornings.  She is happy to set up a phone call, zoom, or personal meeting.

Buttons reading “she,” “he,” and “they” are located in the front entryway on the literature table. We encourage everyone to wear one as an act of inclusion.  All of our board members have name tags with their pronouns, and High Holiday tickets/name badges also include each individual’s preferred pronouns. Read more at https://pronouns.org.

Temple B'nai Brith began an accessibility campaign in 2002 to make our synagogue building more accessible for all. We installed accessible bathrooms, and eventually an elevator. It took many years to raise the funds needed to install an elevator- TBB's largest renovation project to date. 

After years of preliminary groundwork and fund raising, Project Aliyah was finally completed in 2017. Thanks to the City of Somerville for helping to make Project Aliyah possible through a Community Preservation Act grant, to Derek Bloom Architects and Hamilton Construction for their hard work on the project, and to you our donors for finally making Project Aliyah a reality!

Starting in 2002, we established the necessary organizational structure to explore all options and carry out the work of an accessibility campaign. Early donors helped to support the first phase of the accessibility plan, as well as to raise awareness of accessibility within our congregation.

Renovations were completed in the synagogue restrooms.

In 2014, we jump-started our accessibility efforts with a new, more affordable plan to place an elevator in an existing synagogue stairwell.

In 2015, TBB was awarded a generous Community Preservation Act grant from the City of Somerville to install an elevator and improve our fire safety system, a critical element in our goal to make all areas of the synagogue accessible to all.

In 2016, TBB signed a contract with Hamilton Construction to move forward with our accessibility project, including installing an elevator and a fire suppression system.

Construction began in March 2017.

Our long awaited elevator was delivered on July 5, 2017.

Construction was completed before the 2017 High Holidays.

New elevators are delivered unassembled, and require a very large truck.

16 foot rails had to be brought in through a window.

The Chapel served as temporary storage for yet-to-be-assembled elevator parts.

A new fire suppression system was installed.

Finally, our elevator was assembled in place within the newly built elevator shaft.