Student Profile: Carolina Tannenbaum-Baruchi
Student Profile: Carolina Tannenbaum-Baruchi
March 13, 2013
Homeland & Cyber Security, Medical Research, Negev Development & Community Programs
During her master’s degree studies in emergency medicine at BGU, Carolina Tannenbaum-Baruchi often had to run to shelters as rocket alarms sounded in the city and had become accustomed to it.
Carolina Tannenbaum-Baruchi
One day, however, as she was rushing to a safe place, the thought crossed her mind: “What happens to someone who can’t hear it?”
This question then became the central subject of her thesis about the struggles of deaf people during Operation Cast Lead.
Tannenbaum-Baruchi, partnering with PREPARED, BGU’s Center for Emergency Response Research, holds emergency training sessions for deaf people at the University.
The main issues on the agenda are how to behave in the event of an earthquake and what to do when one can’t hear rocket alarms.
“Reading lips is my mother tongue,” says Tannenbaum-Baruchi, who is the daughter of two deaf parents.
She made aliyah from Chile 18 years ago and is now married and a mother of three. Growing up, she often had to help with things her parents couldn’t do, such as answering or making phone calls.
“Sometimes people would hang up on me when they heard I was a little girl, they thought it was a prank,” she says smiling.
Her parents, however, do not use sign language to communicate: They speak and read lips.
“Not all deaf people are the same. That’s very important for people to realize. Some sign; some don’t; some are very involved in the deaf community; some are not.
“They also don’t all speak the same language. In Israel, there are Israelis, Russians who speak the Russian sign language, or even Bedouins who have a language of their own. It’s very different.”
Due to these differences, one solution for all deaf people in times of emergency is not effective. Tannenbaum-Baruchi believes there should be many different options for them.
“For earthquakes, it’s easier because you feel it. You don’t need to hear it. The problem is for when rocket alarms go off.”
In these cases, the Home Front Command has made a vibrating beeper device available for deaf people, activated when a rocket threat is detected. However, there have been many instances when the beeper has not worked properly.
“They have learned that you can’t trust the beeper, so they just don’t use it anymore,” said Dr. Limor Aharonson-Daniel, head of BGU’s Department of Emergency Medicine.
“They are completely exposed to the danger. Some of them have all sorts of arrangements with their neighbors for example, who will let them know when an alarm goes off. So if it’s a 45-second warning, you may find someone nice who will do it, but if it’s a matter of 15 seconds, no one will take the time,” Aharonson-Daniel explained.
Aharonson-Daniel also underlined the importance of the training. “I think it’s a community whose needs have not been addressed properly, mostly due to our lack of awareness of their needs and the lack of knowledge about what solutions we can provide for them. Their voices haven’t been heard,” she said.
Both Tannenbaum-Baruchi and Aharonson-Daniel agree that the needs of deaf people in times of emergency are important, but they extend this also to general basic needs: “For example, the bubble on the corner of the TV screen during the news, where you see someone translate into sign language.
“Well a lot of them have said that’s too small for them to see the signs properly. So we think we give them solutions, but in fact, they can’t really use them,” Aharonson-Daniel said.
As of today, no statistics exist as to how many deaf people there are in Israel.
“They feel very misunderstood. Their disability isn’t visible on the outside; others can’t tell it’s there. Their disability is internal,” Tannenbaum-Baruchi explains.
“I think deafness isn’t just a problem of not being able to hear sounds, it’s a communication problem between the deaf and the hearing.”
Emergency training seminars for the deaf are organized in Beer-Sheva in partnership with Israel’s Home Front Command, as part of a training program initiated by Tannenbaum-Baruchi, called Signs in Crisis.
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