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so much meaning in one capital letter
My synagogue has been focusing (to varying degrees) on disability inclusion for the last couple years. They have recently taken to writing the word as "disAbility". I find it patronizing, trite, and a huge step backwards. It reeks of "special!", of having no expectations -- which to me is not validating but repelling. It replaces dealing with individual people, with all their complexities with feel-good promotional slogans.
Do not claim that my disability is some kind of special "ability". It's not. It's just part of how God made me, a thing I deal with and mostly manage pretty well, sometimes by asking for specific help, sometimes by acknowledging my limitations and not taking certain paths, same as everybody else. I don't obsess over my disability; why should you? I expect you to not place stumbling-blocks before me. I expect you to listen and do your best to accommodate when I make reasonable requests. I neither expect nor want you to make a fuss over me, to somehow claim that I have "different abilities", or to give me a free pass on things that are otherwise required of everybody. That's stuff some people do with children. I am not a child; do not treat me like one.
And even if my disability does somehow come with a special ability? (Technically I suppose it might.) If so, it's just an "ability". Not an "Ability", and certainly not a "disAbility". That just feels like spin, and ineffective spin at that. And that brings us back to "patronizing".
Don't. Just don't.
Surely in Jewish Disability Awareness Month, we can do better.
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Having a bit more time -- there is a pattern here that often happens when people who have often referred disparagingly to an aspect think it's the mention that is the problem, not the disparagement. SO they try to ignore the aspect or downplay it instead of accepting it and figuring out what the situation needs. I hope that framing can help you explain to them why this is a mistake, if you want to do so. (SOmetimes it's worth trying to teach people, sometimes not, only the person on the ground can evaluate the situation.)
hugs you supportively