(Rabbi) Reeve Brenner
rockville, Maryland
How is your Hero working to make the world a better place?
Rabbi Reeve Brenner became particularly sensitive to the needs of the disabled, the differently-able and special populations when a dear cousin became a wheelchair user. In their childhood, they were playmates at sports and now were separated and no ball playing facility existed where they could participate together. He realized that competition and opponents in recreation translate into exclusion and separation. The concept "playmates" soon transforms into rivalry and taking on a competitor whom one defeats. Rabbi Brenner writes: "most sports are age limited, restrictive in playership and psychologically damaging". Competition creates losers not cooperation when there are opponents to defeat. Above all, losers walk away defeated. That is not what is intended with a playground. This focus on competition is damaging and not life enhancing. "Think of the ball playing sports we play and pay in large budgets and large spaces. We needed a ball playing playground in which the children move their bodies and play alongside, not against each other and therefore, most importantly, there would not be winners and losers. Rather you'd be playing yourself, developing your own skills alongside your playmate in "play." Rabbi Brenner invented inclusionary universally designed sports enabling the disabled, routinely denied facilities and opportunities provided the able community, to mainstream with others. It did not seem right to him that the separate but hardly equal ball playing activities and facilities were exclusionary. Rabbi Brenner's sensitivity for the differently-able motivated him to creating sports with no opponents, achieving socialization and inclusion of all populations."
How has your Hero impacted your life and inspired you?
As a native of Turkey, Rabbi Brenner has inspired me to bring his concept of Total-Mix Sports based on Universal Design to my own country.