Jewish deaf-blind man ‘speaks out'
by
Ben Rose Staff Reporter
TORONTO
-
The
voice of Harold Smith, 79, a Jewish deaf and blind man, is like
a call of the wild.
Smith tries so hard to answer questions in his own voice, although
he knows it is impossible for the ordinary person to understand
jim. But he keeps trying, which is one reason he has survived.
Smith "reads" the questions on his fingers, tapped out in two-handed
manual fashion by his young intervenor, Marta Irwin. After his
initial attempt to answer with his own voice, requiring almost
painful effort on his part, he replies to Marta in sign language.Advocates
for the deaf and other disabled groups said the judgement recognizes
that the deaf have the same right to communicate with their
doctors as people who can hear. They said the decision would
serve as a powerful lever for all disabled people in their struggle
for equal treatment.
The son of Samuel and Edith Smith, who ran a tailoring shop
at Queen and Greenwood streets, he said he was "too poor" to
attend any Hebrew school, but adheres to his Jewish faith by
attending synagogue with an intervenor when he can. With the
intervenor's help, he understands some of the synagogue service.
Among the synagogues, he has attended are Beth Tikvah, Shaarei
Shomayim and Beth Tzedec, the latter for a bar mitzvah and a
wedding.
Despite his handicaps, Smith enjoys life, particularly when
friends drop in for a surprise visit to his third-floor one-bedroom
apartment in the Rotary Cheshire building where he is second
in seniority among the 16 tenants to an active 88- year-old
woman. He has lived here since the building opened in 1992.
He keeps busy doing macrame and reads Braille books and magazines
from the CNIB, "although I'm a slow reader."
His skill at crafts paid off when he sold 17 baskets at the
Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf on Bayview Avenue, where he
used to live.
Smith was born in the Kew Beach area of Toronto, where a number
of Jews once lived, but six months later he developed convulsions
and became deaf. He is the only deaf person in his family. A
diabetic, he began losing his sight 20 years ago and is now
blind.
At the age of seven, Smith was sent to the Clinton Street school
for the deaf, and later to the school at Belleville. At 17,
he began home school instruction with his late brother, William.
Smith wanted to become a printer, but this was during the Depression,
and there were no jobs. So he worked in his father's tailoring
and dry cleaning shop for 33 years.
"I hated the work," he says candidly. But he goes on to say
how much fun he had other times on an apple-picking trip or
attending the CNE, for example - and how he likes to have dinner
out with friends, always with an intervenor, because he can't
travel alone.
During this three-way conversation, Smith keeps trying to speak
out, but his words are unintelligible. Yet he holds no grudge
against those, like the CJN reporter, who did not know sign
language. Instead, he urges everyone to do their best to communicate
with deaf-blind people like himself.
Smith cooks his own meals in the apartment, being careful to
follow food rules for diabetics, especially when it comes to
desserts. "I am terribly scared of the complications of diabetics.
Right now I am okay with pills instead of insulin."
He had four sisters: two of them, Kay and Sylvia are still alive
and live in Toronto. He is a great-uncle to many nieces and
nephews.
In his quest to have people better understand the plight of
deaf-blind people, he has a strong ally in Joyce Thompson, director
of his Rotary Cheshire home on Willowdale Avenue in North York,
the only one in the world reserved solely for people who are
deaf and blind. There are 29 other Cheshire homes in Ontario.
"During these days of cutbacks, it is tough to get support for
more services like intervenors for deaf-blind people," Thompson
says.
At the moment, Thompson and her friends are concentrating on
getting services expanded for such people, so that they can
live independently, with access to information 24 hours a day.
Thompson says the official figure of 7,000 deaf-blind people
in Canada does not include the many seniors who develop these
handicaps later in life.
