Find Your Fight by Jay Ruderman; Greenleaf Book Group Press; © 2025; ISBN 9781963-827071; 173 pages plus appendices; $28.
SAN DIEGO – For activists pushing a cause, this book offers nine tips for success. It was written by one of the nation’s foremost advocates for inclusion in all walks of life of people with disabilities.
1) Find Your Fight – Choose a cause to which you can give your wholehearted commitment. “Because when you are acting from the heart, you have the power to move other people’s hearts and minds and inspire them to join you in making change.”
2) Be persistent – Author Ruderman is a political liberal, but he quotes the 30th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, a conservative Republican, on this issue: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
3) Know your facts –Study the issue. Keep up with it in the news. Research the whys and wherefores. Make yourself an authority on the subject. Go narrow and go deep. Following such directives, you will be respected and believed. Prepare or commission studies on topics affecting your cause.
4) Recruit Allies – The more voices on your side, the more likely you will be heard. “You need to work with others who can complement your skills and interests, and you need allies who bring their own platforms and supporters to the cause.”
5) Court controversy – Politely criticize public figures and institutions that fail to live up to standards. Ruderman did so when he criticized the television and movie industriy for failing to hire members of the disabled community as actors, even when the roles depict the hazards and triumphs of disability. Me Before You was a 2016 movie in which a wheelchair-bound patient falls in love with his caretaker and commits suicide to enable her to fully live her life without him.
“Let the message of that movie sink in,” Ruderman writes. “First, you’ve got the premise that death is better than life in a wheelchair. Secondly, the character who becomes paralyzed from the neck down after being hit by a motorbike was played by able-bodied actor Sam Claflin – a stunning example of Hollywood’s exclusion of actors with disabilities.”
Subsequently, when Alec Baldwin played the lead role in the movie Blind, Ruderman again challenged Hollywood in a press release: “Alec Baldwin in Blind is just the latest example of treating disability as a costume. We no longer find it acceptable for white actors to portray black characters. Disability as a costume needs to also become universally acceptable.”
6) Leverage Power – Director Peter Farrelly, whose Green Book won the 2019 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor, became a believer in casting disabled actors. He called the heads of NBC Universal, Sony, and Paramount urging them to take the Ruderman Pledge, which states: “We recognize that disability is central to diversity, that the disability community comprises the largest minority in our nation, and that people with disabilities face seclusion from the entertainment industry. We understand that increasing auditions, no matter the size of the role, is a critical step towards achieving inclusion in the industry. This studio pledges to increase the number of actors and actresses with disabilities who audition for parts on television and on film.” The three studios signed the pledge within months.
7) Take care of yourself – Activists are on a long road toward progress, with some achievements bringing the cause forward and some disappointments bringing it backward. Avoid burnout. Take time off. Exercise. Rest. Ruderman is an Orthodox Jew, so he and his family disconnect from the secular world every Shabbat.
8) Know your no – Don’t overextend yourself. Even though peripheral causes may interest you, turn down offers that will divert you from your main purpose. Also, avoid people who your gut tells you not to trust.
9) Take the win … then keep fighting. “All your successes both big and small, are worth celebrating. So be sure to take the time to mark those winning moments with your team.”
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.