Degrees of disability

‘Almost blind’ since birth, at 30 Zohar Farhi is still struggling for the conditions she needs to be able to complete her academic studies.

By ORIT AGAMI
Zohar Farhi 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Zohar Farhi 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
At first glance Zohar Farhi, 30, appears healthy and carefree, but in reality she suffers from an all-encompassing disability. Farhi was born in Argentina with the virus Toxoplasma gondii, which usually attacks a person’s hearing and later causes problems of vision.
In Farhi’s case, her hearing and intelligence were not harmed, but from infancy she did not react appropriately to visual stimuli and suffered from involuntary blinking.
Doctors told her parents that their daughter was blind.
But they were wrong: In time, they realized that she could actually see a little bit; she could differentiate between light and dark and also recognize shapes up close. This disability is defined as a serious visual impairment in which sufferers are almost blind.
Farhi’s parents, who did not realize the severity of their daughter’s disability, sent her to a regular state school. “I had no problem getting along with kids my age,” Farhi says. “They accepted me as I was. But teachers had a hard time accepting me. They didn’t understand how much pain I was in. On the one hand, I looked healthy. But on the other, when all of the other children were sitting at their desks and copying from the chalkboard, I had to get up and stand right next to it so that I could see the letters up close. Most of the kids who were in my class remember what my back looked like, since I was always standing at the board. My teachers refused to accept the fact that I was disabled.”
Farhi’s father died when she was nine, and to provide for her and her two brothers, her mother was forced to work at three different jobs. “We were very poor. We had no money,” she recalls. “At the age of 12 I began working – handing out flyers.”
Despite her efforts to integrate into normal life, the repeated rejection by her teachers caused her to sink into depression.
“I always had a smile on my face, but inside I was suffering.
When I got to high school, I couldn’t take it any longer and I broke down. I felt like no one understood me, and how difficult my life was. So I went to a school for the blind, where I met a girl who helped me find my way out of the hole into which I’d fallen. I saw that she was successfully dealing with her disability so I said to myself, ‘I can too.’” People have a hard time understanding Farhi’s visual impairment since she is not completely blind. “A blind person cannot see at all,” she says. “Everyone understands blindness. But it’s hard to understand someone like me, since I look completely normal but I can barely see anything. I wanted to study education in Argentina, but my teachers told me that it was a waste of time and that I’d never become a teacher. I answered them, saying that ‘I’m going to succeed in fulfilling my dreams and that I can do anything I want to.’” Farhi studied special education for three years in Argentina, despite tremendous obstacles and the lack of support from the school system. But just before graduation, she broke down again. “I gave up. They were always saying horrible things to me. When I broke down, the only thing I could think about was that ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, because they’re not letting me be who I want to be.’” Farhi tried going back to school, this time to learn psychology, at which point the virus attacked her once again. She was 22 years old.
“I had gone back to school. I had a boyfriend who loved me and I was feeling optimistic again. And then the virus attacked me again. My face became swollen from my mouth up to my forehead – I looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I lay on my bed for an entire year. I couldn’t go out. My boyfriend and my mother supported me, but I was in terrible pain. I considered having an operation that would make me completely blind, so that the authorities would consider me 100-percent blind. But I didn’t do it.
Instead, I decided to make a change and start from square one. I traveled to Israel and began volunteering.”
Farhi left her life in Argentina behind – her family and her boyfriend – and came to Israel to volunteer and later, make aliya. She went to a nonprofit organization called Eliya, which for over 29 years has been operating unique programs for blind and visually impaired children and their families throughout Israel. She was received with open arms.
Her daily hardships, however, did not come to an end. “I had different kinds of difficulties in Israel. I knew every nook and cranny in Argentina. But now I was in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language. I was living in Jerusalem and was not familiar with the city.
It was very difficult to get around. I lived in a student dormitory, and there were 12 buildings – all identical. More than once, I entered the wrong building and tried to get into my room. I would cry and cry. And then at some point, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself.
“Working at the Eliya kindergarten saved my life. I started to learn my way around the place; I became more fluent in Hebrew and figured out how to get work done. After six months, the director offered to take me on as an employee. I applied for a working permit and began working as a kindergarten assistant. I worked for six months as a volunteer and then six months for pay.”
Farhi believes that she was destined to live in Israel. Eliya became her second family. Subsequently, she married an Israeli and gave birth to a healthy baby. “At Eliya, I was responsible for determining whether this was the right place for babies that were brought to us. When I would come in to work, the parents didn’t realize that I was also visually impaired. When I told them this, but that I was able to work and that I was married, they relaxed a little. This job is like manna from heaven for me. I know exactly what to do and what tools to use to help the children. I’ve been at Eliya for five years now and am very happy with my work. How many people do you know who can say that they love what they are doing?” But underneath all of this amazing optimism, a dark cloud still hangs over Farhi – her unfinished college studies. Three years ago she began studying education at David Yellin Academic College of Education in Jerusalem, but admits that once again she encountered the same difficulties she had with her teachers in Argentina.
“I have a set of binoculars that I use to see the board, but I still can’t see the small print,” she says. “They give us worksheets that we need to complete, but I cannot read them since the print is too small. I explained this to the teachers, but they refuse to prepare a special page for me. If I were to walk with a stick, they would see that I was 100% disabled, but my eyes don’t have any disfigurements that many blind people have. I know how to make my hair look nice and I dress well, so in the teachers’ minds, I’m not blind.
“I cannot read multiple choice exams at all, and the teachers won’t print one in a larger font for me. When I remind them that I have trouble seeing, they apologize and say that they forgot. In order to pass the course, I need to be given exams in large font or to take an oral exam. Sometimes this makes me feel like I’m 15 years old and back in Argentina. So I stayed in bed for a week, with no energy to deal with this anymore. For 30 years I’ve been trying to learn, but I don’t seem to be succeeding. Each time I fall again, and then have to pick myself back up and try again. I don’t want to give up my dream of finishing college and finally having an academic degree.”
Bizchut-The Israel Human Rights Center for People with Disabilities claims the following: “Every student with a disability is entitled to receive the necessary adjustments to be able to complete his or her studies equitably and with dignity. Visually impaired students are eligible to receive additional time or to have tests read to them. All exams and assignments need to be printed in large letters.”
David Yellin College responded with the following: “One of the cornerstones of the David Yellin College’s educational perspective is to fully integrate disabled students into Israeli society. To this end, we have established a center to support and empower students with special needs.
“Unfortunately, Zohar only recently approached our center, after many pleas from the head of the department in which she is studying.
Even before this, we made many efforts to accommodate her. We regret that she has had such a difficult time and we would like to invite her to continue to make use of the effective tools that the college has to offer to students with special needs.”
Translated by Hannah Hochner.


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