Matan Koch's guest appearances

Matan Koch

College Commons

Search for Meaning with Rabbi Yoshi

Michelle Sullivan

Amy Eilberg

Benjamin Sommer

Jonah Pesner

Jonathan Sarna

Ariel Burger

Mike Uram

Laura Geller

Mark Oppenheimer

Scott Shay

Jeffrey Salkin

Rabbi Sharon Brous

Steven Windmueller

David Makovsky

Rachel Tzvia

OwlTail

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Matan Koch, the Senior Vice president for Strategic Change at RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community. Born 11 weeks premature with cerebral palsy and confined to a wheelchair for his entire life, Koch graduated from Yale and took his law degree from Harvard Law School, and has been a lifelong advocate for those with disabilities. He joins Rabbi Yoshi as we celebrate Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM).Observed each February, JDAIM is a unified effort among Jewish organizations worldwide to raise awareness and foster inclusion of people with disabilities and those who love them. JDAIM was founded in 2009 by the Jewish Special Education International Consortium to raise awareness and encourage inclusion for people with disabilities and special needs. Appointed by President Obama to the National Council on Disability (where he served from 2011 to 2014), Koch is a longtime national leader in disability advocacy."As the child of a congregational rabbi, who was also a URJ camp faculty member, and himself a former NFTY national officer, I was born into sort of the entire apparatus of the Reform movement at a time when people like me were not a part of that apparatus," Koch says. "In many ways, I benefitted from that. While institutional Judaism wouldn't think about practical strategies for people like me until the turn of this century, it meant that the approach was much more, 'How are we going to include Matan?' and much less, 'What's our strategy for the inclusion of Jews with disabilities?'"From his childhood summers spent at URJ camps Eisner and Kutz, he saw demonstrations of demonstrated a type of inclusion that would plant the seeds for his future advocacy, and fell in love with song leading.He began his disability policy career lobbying for a major disability organization in Washington while an undergraduate at Yale (where he was the president of the university's student disabilities community) and was appointed to the city of New Haven disability commission at the age of 18 while a college junior.After graduating from Harvard Law, he served as counsel for Proctor &amp; Gamble. Working with both the product marketing teams at P&amp;G and its disabilities inclusion network, he developed the perspectives on consumer power and talent maximizing jobs for people with disabilities at the heart of the business case for universal inclusion that he teaches today.Considered one of the nation’s leading Jewish inclusion experts, he has developed training and materials for many Jewish organizations, including Hillel International, the Union for Reform Judaism, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. The son of a rabbi and a Jewish educator, he has been speaking on Jewish inclusion since early childhood and has been formally and informally retained by Jewish organizations for the last 20 years."This to me is the zinger: So what is the traditional instruction that, you know, resulted in the building of the Mishkan and the building also, later, of the Temple? It is, 'Build Me a space that I may dwell among you,' right? That, that we're building a space for God," says Matan. "And yet, if each of us, with our varying levels of ability, is a reflection of God, then God reflects the totality of all of that, which means that to build a space—to truly build a space for God to dwell among us—it has to be a fully inclusive space, because any person, any attribute, any type, that is excluded from the space that we build, is a facet of God that we are excluding from that."

In the latest edition of his <a href="https://www.wisela.org/searchformeaning/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Search for Meaning podcast</a>, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Matan Koch, the Senior Vice president for Strategic Change at <a href="http://www.respectability.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">RespectAbility</a>, a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community. Born 11 weeks premature with cerebral palsy and confined to a wheelchair for his entire life, Koch graduated from Yale and took his law degree from Harvard Law School, and has been a lifelong advocate for those with disabilities. He joins Rabbi Yoshi as we celebrate Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM).Observed each February, JDAIM is a unified effort among Jewish organizations worldwide to raise awareness and foster inclusion of people with disabilities and those who love them. JDAIM was founded in 2009 by the Jewish Special Education International Consortium to raise awareness and encourage <a href="https://www.wisela.org/inclusivity/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">inclusion</a> for people with disabilities and special needs. Appointed by President Obama to the National Council on Disability (where he served from 2011 to 2014), Koch is a longtime national leader in disability advocacy."As the child of a congregational rabbi, who was also a URJ camp faculty member, and himself a former NFTY national officer, I was born into sort of the entire apparatus of the Reform movement at a time when people like me were not a part of that apparatus," Koch says. "In many ways, I benefitted from that. While institutional Judaism wouldn't think about practical strategies for people like me until the turn of this century, it meant that the approach was much more, 'How are we going to include Matan?' and much less, 'What's our strategy for the inclusion of Jews with disabilities?'"From his childhood summers spent at URJ camps Eisner and Kutz, he saw demonstrations of demonstrated a type of inclusion that would plant the seeds for his future advocacy, and fell in love with song leading.He began his disability policy career lobbying for a major disability organization in Washington while an undergraduate at Yale (where he was the president of the university's student disabilities community) and was appointed to the city of New Haven disability commission at the age of 18 while a college junior.After graduating from Harvard Law, he served as counsel for Proctor &amp; Gamble. Working with both the product marketing teams at P&amp;G and its disabilities inclusion network, he developed the perspectives on consumer power and talent maximizing jobs for people with disabilities at the heart of the business case for universal inclusion that he teaches today.Considered one of the nation’s leading Jewish inclusion experts, he has developed training and materials for many Jewish organizations, including Hillel International, the Union for Reform Judaism, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. The son of a rabbi and a Jewish educator, he has been speaking on Jewish inclusion since early childhood and has been formally and informally retained by Jewish organizations for the last 20 years."This to me is the zinger: So what is the traditional instruction that, you know, resulted in the building of the Mishkan and the building also, later, of the Temple? It is, 'Build Me a space that I may dwell among you,' right? That, that we're building a space for God," says Matan. "And yet, if each of us, with our varying levels of ability, is a reflection of God, then God reflects the totality of all of that, which means that to build a space—to truly build a space for God to dwell among us—it has to be a fully inclusive space, because any person, any attribute, any type, that is excluded from the space that we build, is a facet of God that we are excluding from that."

Search for Meaning with Matan Koch

In a probing exploration, Matan Koch, disability expert, leads us through a thoughtful discussion on how we language disability and the inadvertent benefits of privilege. Matan A. Koch is a speaker, educator, and consultant, sharing ideas and strategies to promote the universal inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of society, using strategies that benefit everyone. His lifelong history of disability advocacy began at age four with a presentation to several hundred young people, continued with a term as the president of Yale University's student disabilities community, and reached its most recent high point with his appointment by President Barack Obama to the National Council on Disability, for a term which concluded in 2014.

In a probing exploration, Matan Koch, disability expert, leads us through a thoughtful discussion on how we language disability and the inadvertent benefits of privilege.  Matan A. Koch is a speaker, educator, and consultant, sharing ideas and strategies to promote the universal inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of society, using strategies that benefit everyone. His lifelong history of disability advocacy began at age four with a presentation to several hundred young people, continued with a term as the president of Yale University's student disabilities community, and reached its most recent high point with his appointment by President Barack Obama to the National Council on Disability, for a term which concluded in 2014.

Matan Koch: How We Talk About Disability