Deaf Israeli

Israel's Deaf are the people who use Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and take part in Deaf life: schools, clubs and the Association of the Deaf. ISL grew from the first school for deaf children, founded in Jerusalem in 1932 by teachers from Germany, and absorbed signs brought by deaf immigrants from many countries; it belongs to the German Sign Language family. It is used by Jewish, Arab, Druze and Bedouin Deaf alike, Arab signers mouthing Arabic words. Two village sign languages arose where inherited deafness was common: Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language in the Negev, about 70 years old and studied worldwide as a newly born language, and Kafr Qasem Sign Language in the Triangle, now giving way to ISL among the young. The Association of the Deaf in Israel, founded in 1944 and based at Helen Keller House in Tel Aviv, has about 6,000 members in nine branches and clubs, one of them for the Arab sector in Qalansawe. People who lose their hearing later in life and keep using spoken Hebrew or Arabic belong to their own peoples.

Deaf life centres on the Association's clubs, sport, Deaf theatre (including the Nalaga'at deaf-blind theatre in Jaffa) and social media in ISL. Israel is unusual in drafting deaf people, who serve in non-combat roles with interpreters, which opens doors to jobs and networks. The Academy of the Hebrew Language opened an ISL department in 2022, and Bar-Ilan University built an ISL corpus (2020-2024). Most deaf children are now mainstreamed in hearing schools, many with cochlear implants, which shrinks the signing community.

Most Deaf Israelis share their families' faith: secular or traditional Judaism for most, Sunni Islam, Christianity or the Druze faith for Arab and Druze Deaf. Without interpreters, synagogue and mosque life is largely closed to them. Classical Jewish law exempted the deaf-mute (cheresh) from the commandments, but modern rabbis accept signing deaf people as full participants, and Israel's only deaf rabbi, a Chabad emissary, runs a deaf Jewish centre and is translating the Hebrew Bible into ISL.

There is no complete Scripture in Israeli Sign Language. A Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into ISL by the Chabad-linked Jewish Deaf Community Center released Ruth in 2020 and is working on Genesis. The Whole Word Institute in Jerusalem has trained Deaf Bible translation consultants since 2020, but no Deaf Messianic congregation is known in Israel and no JESUS film exists in ISL. Written Hebrew Bibles are a second-language resource for many signers.