Alerted by the doorbell, Samuel Landman, 29, appears at the entrance to his parents’ modest home on the West Side.
“Welcome,” he says, his warm tone matching the greeting. “Come in.”
Esther Landman, Samuel’s mother, did not hear the bell.
Instead, a flashing light aroused her attention.
Esther and her husband Lawrence Landman are deaf.
Samuel, like his three married siblings, hears perfectly.
Esther stands behind her son, tentative yet gracious.
“Where do we sit?” Samuel signs to his mother.
The kitchen table — witness to so many conversations flowing through fingers and hands — is the obvious choice.
Brief explanatory gestures dart.
Then Samuel begins interpreting his mother’s story.
Esther Rosenstrauch (later Rosen) “was born in Poland and was deaf from birth,” he recounts from memory. “She had Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that also affects her eyesight.
“My grandparents Leah and David Rosenstrauch, and my mother’s sister, who is 16 years older and also deaf, all hid in Poland during the Holocaust,” he says.
Silence unrelated to the five senses permeates the kitchen.
The Rosenstrauch family was constantly on the move, seeking temporary refuge in barns and dirt holes.
When Esther was born, her crying forced Leah and David to make an agonizing decision: risk discovery, or find a separate, tenuous sanctuary for their daughter.
Mrs. Rosenstrauch found a Christian woman who agreed to take care of the six-week-old infant in return for money. The two women agreed to transfer the baby on a darkened street at an appointed time.
Esther’s rapidly moving hands interrupt.
Samuel signs something in return.
“Wait, I never knew this before,” he says. “My mom says that a Nazi found her in the alley.”
More signs fly between mother and son.
The full story emerges.
Leah Rosenstrauch placed her infant daughter in a basket, left her at the predetermined spot, and waited out of sight — but before the Christian caregiver could cross the street to retrieve Esther, a Nazi appeared.
The Nazi examined the basket and its precious contents. For reasons unknown, he brought Esther to the nearest convent, where the nuns cared for her until they put her up for adoption.
After the war, Mrs. Rozenstrauch managed to locate Esther’s address. A nun accompanied her to the house.
But the adoptive mother refused to give Esther up “until my grandmother threatened to call the police,” Samuel relates.
With a little added help from the nun, Leah retrieved her daughter.
The family went to Munich after liberation. In 1946, they boarded a ship bound for the US.
“One of my mother’s first memories was that boat,” he says. “She was a toddler. The boat was rocking back and forth, and she was having so much fun.
Everyone else was sick — and she couldn’t understand why, because she was having such a good time.”
The family lived in New York before coming to Denver in 1947.
Esther was sent to the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind in Colorado Springs, where she received a complete education within the context of a deaf culture.
Since she was the only Jewish student, her closest friends were non-Jews.
“My mom basically grew up there, lived there,” says Samuel. “She only came home on certain weekends.
“Here in Denver, she was immersed in Orthodox surroundings because her mother was Orthodox. My grandmother even sent kosher food to my mom in Colorado Springs.
“Mom certainly knew a little bit about her faith — but not that much.”
Lawrence Landman slips like a shadow through the back door and disappears for a while. A machinist, he probably wants to clean up after working all day.
In his absence, Samuel shares his father’s story.
“My dad was born in Kansas,” he says. “His mother contracted measles during the pregnancy, which resulted in his deafness.
“His parents didn’t learn sign language for a very, very long time,” Samuel says. “They actually spoke to him as if he were a normal hearing child.”
The family moved to Denver in WW II.
“My grandfather was a pilot in the US Air Force at Lowry,” Samuel says. “He had heard that a sudden decrease or increase in pressure could relieve deafness, so he tried it out with my father.
“He took my dad up in a plane. But instead of doing a sharp dive, my grandfather kind of spiraled down. So he never found out whether the theory actually worked.”
The Landmans then moved to Omaha, where Lawrence grew up.
After an unhappy stint selling cars, Lawrence trained as a machinist.
Asked how his parents met, Samuel lets Esther explain.
“Every Sunday, the students at the school in Colorado Springs went to church — except my mom,” Samuel interprets. “She refused to go.
“A girl from Omaha began attending the school, and she told my mom that she knew a deaf Jewish boy back home.
“Mom was like, ‘OK, but I’m not really interested.’”
The Omaha student took it upon herself to write Lawrence a letter, pretending to be Esther.
The subterfuge was successful.
“Mom and Dad started communicating back and forth,” Samuel says. “But then they broke up.”
Esther became engaged to a young man in California, but he was tragically killed in an automobile accident before the wedding.
“Some time later, my mom attended an annual conference for the deaf in New York. My dad also was there.”
The relationship reignited.
Lawrence, who can read lips, comes in the kitchen and takes a seat.
“Tell my story,” he signs to Samuel.
“I am,” Samuel responds.
Esther diverts Samuel’s attention with her hands.
“Oh, this is funny,” Samuel says. “She says that dad always liked to talk about sports too much.”
“No, I didn’t!” Lawrence objects.
“He used to tell me all the scores, and I didn’t care about that!” Esther counters.
Samuel smiles.
“When they met at that conference, my father didn’t talk about sports at all.”
The couple married in 1965.
As in all marriages, the Landmans have their share of ups and downs.
The ability to hear — or not — is irrelevant, Samuel says.
“It makes no difference,” he says.
“My parents have had their fighting moments, and they can yell just as loudly as anyone else — except they dont make a sound,” he laughs. “But when they get mad, you know it.”
Samuel Landman, who lives on Denver’s East Side, is single. Dovid, 41, Shalom, 38, and Debbie, 29, are married, live out of state and have 13 children between them.
None are deaf.
In the beginning, the responsibility of raising four hearing children presented the Landmans with significant challenges.
Esther says she was “very surprised” when all her children were born without any auditory impairment, Samuel translates.
“When my oldest brother Dovid was born, my parents had his hearing tested. They had no idea whether he could hear. In fact, we were all tested.
“My parents started signing to us when we were infants,” Samuel says. “When I was eight months old, I could sign a few words back” — like hungry, sick, tired, maybe even favorite foods. “By age two, I had a very broad vocabulary.”
Samuel’s grandmother and older brothers, as well as his teachers and classmates at Hillel Academy, taught him to speak orally.
“I remember my first day at preschool at Hillel,” he laughs softly. “The teacher asked me to sign my ABCs. But I couldn’t remember the letter X, so I made something up. The next day, a kid walked up to me and said, ‘That’s not how you sign X.’ To this day I don’t know how he knew.”
Esther kept a baby cry light, a device that flashed in reaction to children’s voices, in their rooms.
“When any of us made a noise louder than a gurgle, she’d come running,” Samuel says.
Samuel and his twin Debbie quickly discovered that if they turned down the volume to prevent the light from flashing, they could talk long into the night.
“Mom caught on,” he says. “She used to come in the room and bust us for being awake.”
Each child’s experience of having deaf parents differed, says Samuel, who attended Hillel, Yeshiva Toras Chaim and Metro State and is now a mashgiach at Shalom Park. I can only describe what it was like for me.”
He recalls being teased by other kids because his parents were deaf. The gross misconception that deafness equates with mental deficiency also circulated.
“I had a ‘semi’ hard time growing up,” he says. “But I learned to cope with it, to move beyond it.”
Now he helps outs with assorted details and difficulties.
“For example, my mom thinks all junk mail is important,” he smiles at Esther, who wants to know what he just said. “When I took her to the doctor, I had to explain the pain scale — you know, on a scale of 1-10. It just wasn’t part of her vocabulary.”
Samuel spends every other Shabbat with his parents.
“Yes, it’s always silent here,” he says. “Actually, I find it very relaxing and peaceful. If I don’t speak out loud, I don’t hear any sounds at all during Shabbos.”
THE first thing many Jews associate with shul is language — and not necessarily the language of prayer. The synagogue is a meeting of minds, and mouths.
In New York and other cities with sizable Jewish populations, deaf Jewish demographics increase accordingly. Noticing fellow congregants signing to each other in a sanctuary of 3,500 members isn’t unusual.
Things are much different in Denver.
The Landmans are the only deaf congregants at Zera Abraham. While they have several deaf Jewish friends out East, they have few, if any, in Denver.
“The truth is, in some ways my parents deafness might make people feel uncomfortable because they just don’t know to deal with it,” Samuel says. “And thats understandable. When something is unfamiliar, you’re just not sure how to act.”
Our Way, a national organization that encourages an awareness and appreciation of deaf individuals within the Jewish community, sent a representative to speak at Zera Abraham several years ago.
“I think that helped people feel more comfortable,” Samuel says, “but now there are very few programs, anywhere.”
Esther, who works part time in day care at Hillel Academy, once taught sign language to a few Jewish women in her neighborhood.
While some of the women are still able to sign with her, the majority of her friends rely on the TDD-TTY machine to communicate.
Despite the simple procedure — Esther types her answers, which are relayed by a hearing speaker to the caller — some people are put off “because they say it’s not my mother’s voice,” Samuel says. “But it is her voice, word for word!
“My parents are far from outcasts in their community,” he stresses. “But it’s always nice when people call or just check up and say hello.”
Lawrence, who was not religious before having children, attends shul each Shabbos.
“If my dad could wear a black hat, he would,” says Samuel, who signs his comment for both parents.
Lawrence laughs soundlessly.
Esther can neither read nor sign Hebrew.
Lawrence, who is familiar with the Hebrew alphabet, reads Hebrew to himself during services and signs all the blessings to Esther in English at the Shabbos table.
He is asked to say a blessing now.
Lawrence’s fingers and hands sweep through the air, punctuating certain signs, pausing between others.
“This,” Samuel explains, “is the netilat yadaim, the blessing for the washing of hands.”
Lawrence nods in the affirmative.
“My mother is often confused in shul because people speak as if she can hear or read their lips,” Samuel says. “She can’t understand what they’re saying.”
Esther interrupts with emphasis.
“Like now,” Samuel acknowledges.
Lawrence believes that Leviticus 19:14 is the sole passage in the Torah that mentions the deaf:
“You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind.”
Lawrence takes the prohibition literally. “It’s teaching you not to be stupid,” his hands declare.
Never having heard the world around them, Esther and Lawrence Landman don’t dwell on it. Life is what it is — and it’s been very good to them.
Asked whether he feels deafness is a blessing or burden, Lawrence’s fingers hesitate before speaking.
“A little bit of both,” he says. “It is a blessing, but it also poses its problems and challenges. It’s not the easiest life.”
Their son goes further.
“They both wish they could hear,” Samuel says. “If there were some miraculous surgery that would allow them to hear, they would get it. Deafness is not something they would wish on anyone.
“Not being able to hear the voices of your children and grandchildren must be very painful — but they are very good at not showing any pain.”
As if to change the subject, Lawrence asks Samuel how much he has to pay to fix his car.
Samuel’s eyes cringe as his fingers provide the exact figure.
Lawrence cringes in return.
No further translation is required.
Sign language, like spoken words, can be adjusted to convey highly personal meanings.
“The first thing the grandkids learned to sign was ‘I love you,’” Samuel says.
Lawrence demonstrates “I love you”: thumb, index and baby finger extended; third and fourth fingers bent.
“The grandkids developed a kind of hand kiss,” Samuel explains. “Now we all do it.”
He reaches his hand, now in the “I love you” position, and touches his hand to Esther’s.
Lawrence leans in until all their fingers lock in a light embrace.
Pure emotion meets in perfect silence.
The rest is commentary.
