JDA Magazine Paperturn Sept 2024 - Flipbook - Page 26
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REMEMBERING JDA MEMBER RUTH MYERS MBE
Our lifelong friend, Ruth Myers, passed away on 29 April 2024.
Ruth Myers was an inspirational woman, whose decades of dedicated campaigning resulted in deaf
people being able to watch subtitles on TV, enjoy BSL in-vision and use telephone relay services.
She received an MBE for her services to Improving Telecommunications Access for deaf people.
She passed away peacefully at Anita Dorfman Home at the age of 92.
Fittingly, her funeral took place during Deaf
Awareness Week. She made history when
her funeral was the 昀椀rst Jewish funeral
to have live speech-to-text captioning
available — giving congregants with
hearing loss full access to every word of
the extremely moving service and eulogies.
Sue Cipin says: “Ruth was responsible for
live captioning in so many settings, so
when we at JDA were arranging for her
funeral to be BSL interpreted, providing
access for people who communicate in
British Sign Language, we felt it was only
right to provide access for deaf people
who don’t sign too. It was absolutely as it
should be.”
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JDATogether — Issue 48 — September 2024
▲ Ruth Myers’ funeral makes Jewish deaf history
as the 昀椀rst Jewish funeral with BSL interpreter
and live captioning
