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Life is Not a Game of Monopoly:

A Grandparent's Story

by Stephen M. Flatow

Netanel enrolled in SINAI at Rosenbaum Yeshiva of Northern Jersey,
and we quickly banished the word “retarded” from our vocabulary.
SINAI helped us to recognize that Netanel certainly was not stupid—
he just had Down’s Syndrome. Within several weeks of his starting at
SINAI, even I could see the difference in him. From week to week,
from month to month, and now from year to year, it’s easy to see he’s
learning, growing—thriving in a warm and caring environment.
The fact of the matter is
that SINAI helped us all to
see the potential and
beauty of a child with
disabilities, or as I like to
say, “different abilities.”
Over time we learned to
lean in to Netanel’s
differences, to appreciate
that they are part of what
makes him the amazing kid
The author with Netanel when he was a toddler he is. I know that living
with Netanel is no cake
Growing up we are taught that if one is good, two is even better. A walk for his parents. He can
double portion of dessert, two-for-one ticket prices, two scoops of be a button-pusher, and
ice cream—you get the message. But what happens when that when he is in a mood, I
double portion is an extra chromosome? The answer is simple but want to head for the hills—
very complicated at the same time: it’s called Down’s Syndrome. well, in fact I do head for

I think back to when my grandson Netanel was born with that extra the hills—but I love Netanel on his first day of high school in
chromosome. I was furious. Less than ten years earlier our entire spending time with him, SINAI at TABC
family had been thrown into turmoil when our daughter Alisa was and I can’t believe how far
murdered by terrorists at the age of twenty. After hearing Netanel’s he has come, how we all underestimated what he could achieve.
diagnosis, I slammed my hand on the kitchen counter and I screamed, Today he is an enthusiastic—and quite popular—high school
“Enough! This is not right, I’m done! Why should my children have to student at SINAI at TABC, and I couldn’t be prouder of him.
cope with this? Where is God’s mercy and compassion?!” I remember how, almost forty years ago, the community came

That night was Yom Kippur. I had a full dinner and stayed home from together to open SINAI at Hebrew Youth Academy (now known
synagogue. God, I thought, should be asking my children for as Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy), creating a place for the
forgiveness, and if He wanted to find me that night, well, He could do children who had nowhere else to turn. At that time, I had no idea
so at my home. And for the first time in sixty years, I did not attend that one of my family would
Yom Kippur services. one day be a student. All I
can say today is Thank God
But twenty-five hours later I was at peace with myself and the there is a SINAI—and that my
Almighty, and I began to appreciate that life is more than a game of beautiful, intelligent, and very
Monopoly and God does not give out “get out of jail free” cards. special grandson can benefit
Meanwhile, Netanel was struggling to eat and breathe, as a heart from it.
defect interfered with his oxygen absorption. That was soon fixed by
the hands of a surgeon with God-given skills. The road my daughter
and her family were traveling on with Netanel was filled with potholes
and curves. Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president
of the Religious Zionists of America,
As Netanel started school, it was obvious that the public school an attorney in New Jersey and the
system was not going to be successful with him. Distressingly, the father of Alisa Flatow, who was
other students in his class were taking up too much of his teacher’s murdered in an Iranian-sponsored
time with behavioral issues that Netanel would mimic when he Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
returned home. He certainly was not getting the individualized His grandson Netanel is his pride and
attention that he needed. We all breathed a sigh of relief when joy.