ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the disability history from the Middle East region, but with a major focus on Israel. In the Middle East the topic of religion is a very important factor of people's lives, and religious organisations have since early days been associated with providing health and welfare services to persons with a disability. The blind person in the Jewish law is regarded as fully normal, and most of the legal and religious restrictions placed upon him are due to the physical disability. It seems that Judaism and Jewish Law have had a practical approach to intellectual disability and a flexible view on the complex issues involved during a long history. During the period several universities became interested in the field of intellectual disability, although nursing and medicine demonstrated little interest in the study of intellectual and developmental disability.
