Survivor of Incest clarifies her letter

This is a clarification of the original letter  in response to my comments and those of other readers

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn,

It seems like there are some misunderstandings about some aspects of my situation.So let me set things straight.

I had no recollection of the abuse until a few years after my wedding, when I entered therapy for a seemingly different problem, (more about that later.) I believe the reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, yes, trauma often gets suppressed. But an equally important reason is that I had no way of knowing when I was going through the abuse that this was not ok. Of course it didn’t feel ok, but I knew nothing about sex, had no language about what was happening, thus I didn’t even have the tools to be able to ask myself whether what my father was doing was ok or not. I believed I was special, and that is why my father was doing this with me, and probably nobody else in the world (certainly not my friends,) has had, or will ever have this experience. I definitely had no clue that this is something all married adults do, and it is not meant for children, or for anyone else besides one’s spouse. I knew about immorality being one of the three cardinal sins that one must give their lives for, yet I had no idea what immorality was, and certainly had no idea that this was what my father was doing.

In addition, please understand that it was totally inconceivable to me that my father would do anything against Halacha, since he was my primary educator regarding Yiddishkeit, so to me, for sure my father was a bigger Yirea Shomayim then I was.  (And those of you familiar with the Chassidishe education system, I’m sure you can realize how we inculcate this notion into our children that the previous generations are for sure much better than the later ones.  After all, the whole issue of Massorah, in a way, hinges on this belief.)

When I found out about sex, a few weeks before my wedding, it was already a couple of years after the last time my father actually lived with me, so although, under the surface there were loads of issues there for me, yet I didn’t have any landing space for the truth to come up and be exposed to me consciously.

Then, a few years after my wedding, I hit a rock bottom regarding a seemingly unrelated issue, and it was suggested to me that I go for therapy, which I did.  It took a year of intensive therapy until I realized that what my father did on a regular basis was sexual abuse, and then, once I realized that, the more suppressed memories of actually living with my father came to the forefront.

Even after the truth was clear to me, it still took another full year of therapy until I was ready to deal with the incest. I needed to take the time in therapy to reexamine who my father really is, character wise, in order for me to be able to accept and deal with the information I now had.

Based on my experience, regarding what it took for me to be able to come face to face with what really happened, I wrote to you in a previous comment that I strongly feel that the majority of incest victims in the Chassidishe communities are not even aware that they are victims.

I have been on an intensive healing journey since my discovery (for close to 20 years,) and look forward to continue on this path for the rest of my life. Baruch Hashem, I can now say that so much of who I am today would not have been possible had I not had the incest in my history. Healing from the incest has forced me to grow in ways that would never have been possible for me had I not had my history. And I believe growth is really what life is all about, and where the pleasure is at.(I hope it is self understood that I’m not in any way justifying abuse by making the above statements. Hashem runs this world, and ultimately no harm befalls us that isn’t leading to our higher good, in this world or the next. Yet this doesn’t at all excuse or mitigate the actions of the perpetrator, who is clearly responsible for his deeds.

Now let me share with you an excerpt of my first letter in order to clarify the point I was trying to make.

I often ponder, “As a child going through the abuse, knowing what I know now as an adult that has been through close to 20 years of intense healing, what would I have wanted other adults to have done to help me back then?” And I cannot say that reporting it to the authorities is the answer. I would have wished for someone, perhaps an aunt or other family member or family friend, to step in and remove me from my family, without exposing to the world what was really happening, (like by forcing my parents to send me to seminary, or by sending me to live with a grandparent with the excuse that the grandparents need a grandchild with them, etc.) In addition, I wish they would have sent me for therapy right then as a teenager

Had the authorities been called into the picture, and my family would have been exposed, I fear I would have never been comfortable in the community again.  Certainly I wouldn’t have been able to do the shidduch I did, or hold the prestigious job I hold. It is sad, but it is just the fact, that our community would surely consider someone like myself as damaged goods, had they been told the truth.  So I keep asking myself, is it really right for us to take a stand that calling in the authorities in such situations is the only correct thing to do?  After all, isn’t it the victim’s life that we are here to improve, and does calling in the authorities, especially in cases of incest really help the victim in the long run?

I think I have made it quite clear that removing the child from the family and getting them into therapy, needs to be the top priority in order to help the victim.

Of course there is also the other issue of protecting potential victims, yet this is not the point I’m focusing on in my letter, rather my question is, what is best for the victim. (Though I do affirm that we are commanded לא תעמד על דם ריעך and if we are able to prevent someone from being abused, and we don’t, we share the liability together with the perpetrator.)

Now, quoting your letter, "living a good and productive life at the cost of living a lie,” I believe that is an oxymoron. Learning to live a good life publicly while privately suffering the painful consequences of being a victim of incest, what is the benefit of living a good life publicly when one is suffering privately?

I don’t see myself as one who lives a lie. Both of my parents are aware of my truth, and more importantly, I do not participate in family functions where I perceive that my presence is an acquiescence to my family’s façade, no matter how weird this looks to others, or how uncomfortable it makes others feel. But perhaps most importantly, because of all the help I received over the years, and my husband’s continuous staunch validation, I know, and totally accept my truth.I choose not to share about my incest with my next door neighbor, school friends, or husband’s family simply because I feel the community just can’t handle it, and chances are they will ostracize me rather than face the truth, or at best, just simply be freaked out by me and my existence. After all, I know what it took for me to be able to digest the information of incest existing in the Chassidishe world, even though I only stood to gain by assimilating that fact, and I was in intense therapy to help me along.So what can I expect of the average Chassidishe community member?

There is just so much more I can say about this point, that I have come to understand while grappling with all this over the years, yet I do realize that this letter is long enough already as is. 

So thanks again for giving me the space to clarify myself, and wishing you much further success.

Jerusalem Conference on Abuse - Rav Zev Leff & Dr. David Pelcovitz January 22, 2012

Brooklyn D.A. Refuses To Name Child Sex Abusers

Forward

Law enforcement officials, legal experts, advocates and politicians have questioned why Brooklyn’s District Attorney arrested 85 Orthodox adults on child sex abuse charges but refuses to release their names.

In just three years, District Attorney Charles Hynes has arrested 83 Orthodox men and two women on charges including sexual abuse, attempted kidnapping and sodomy.

But when asked to reveal names — even of the 14 abusers who were convicted of sex crimes — Hynes refuses.[...]

Abused Israeli guru's 17 wives & 38 children received millions in aid

Haaretz

Many of the wives of Goel Ratzon, the self-styled spiritual guru arrested nearly two years ago for terrorizing and abusing them and their children, are still suffering hardship despite the millions of shekels the state has spent on their rehabilitation. 

Ratzon's 17 wives and their 38 children have received more than NIS 3.4 million in government aid through the Social Affairs Ministry, an unprecedented sum that is far beyond what is usually granted abused women who leave their homes. The funding covered such things as removing tattoos and covering debts of several hundred thousand shekels.

Alleged child molester Herschel Taubenfeld of New Square turned himself into Ramapo Police

Rockland County Times

Alleged child molester Herschel Taubenfeld of New Square has turned himself into Ramapo Police as of 10:30 a.m. this morning. Previously he had fled the area when word of his impending arrest got around. 

  

Sources said Taubenfeld is a well-connected resident of the Hasidic village. Recently a victim of Taubenfeld came forward willing to go through with the prosecution of the case and the sources said police are likely to arrest others in Taubenfeld's circle in the coming weeks. Police have taken a heightened interest and been more successful in pursuing such cases within the Hasidic community, since certain activists like Brooklyn Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg have made light of the abuse.

Others have also helped, though most would rather not have their names known. These activists have been setting up support networks for victims of abuse, as the most difficult aspect of prosecuting abuse charges is finding a victim willing to go through the trauma of the legal process.[...]

Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Report Sexual Assault

NY Times

An exhaustive government survey of rape and domestic violence released on Wednesday affirmed that sexual violence against women remains endemic in the United States and in some instances may be far more common than previously thought. 

Nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or had experienced an attempted rape at some point, and one in four reported being beaten by an intimate partner. One in six women have been stalked, according to the report. 

“That almost one in five women have been raped in their lifetime is very striking and, I think, will be surprising to a lot of people,” said Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey. “I don’t think we’ve really known that it was this prevalent in the population.”[...]

Rabbi expected to plead guilty to sex abuse

Boston Globe

In a case that highlighted concerns about sexual abuse in Jewish communities, a rabbi who taught at one of the region’s most prestigious Jewish day schools is expected to plead guilty today to molesting three sixth-graders during the 1970s, according to two of his alleged victims and others familiar with the case. 

Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt, a former religious studies teacher at the Maimonides School in Brookline, was indicted by a Suffolk grand jury two years ago after one of his students, Michael Brecher, told Suffolk prosecutors that Levitt molested him when he was an 11-year-old patient at Children’s Hospital Boston, and a second student said Levitt abused him in the shower of his Brighton home.[...]

"Is the police the best solution" part II - Response to the letter from survivor of incest

The letter I received and published from a survivor of incest - has attracted many readers and a number of comments. It as a sensitive and cogent expression of the complexity of the horrific reality of abuse in our communities. I have done a lot of thinking about  her questions and how to respond to them. I am not going to complete that task today but simply want to summarize the issues she presents and then perhaps tomorrow to suggest some answers. I want to make sure I understand her letter properly.

She describes herself as a woman from a distinguished Orthodox Jewish family. Her father's sexual attacks happened when she was a child - and due to the resulting trauma - the memory of the rape was suppressed until after she got married. She was not protected or comforted from this rape nor did she receive therapy when it was discovered - apparently therapy started only many years later when she was married for a number of years. She is now living a good and productive life - but at the cost of living a lie regarding her past and being alienated from her family. Part of her concern is that if she had been fully aware of the abuse and if it became public knowledge due to the arrest of her father - she would not have gotten such a good shidduch. Therefore her question comes down to the costs-benefits analysis of having her father arrested for his horrible crime or whether it is better to live a lie in regards to the past - and have a good future?

The tenor of the letter seems to presuppose that there is either a choice of calling the police and having everything exposed and the possibility of a normal life forever destroyed or covering up abuse and learning to live a good life publicly while privately suffering the painful consequences of being a victim of incest.

I hope to show that the response to abuse is more varied and nuanced. [To be continued]

Israeli identity crisis - Who are we?” - Thomas Friedman

NYTimes

[...] It confuses them to read that right-wing Jewish settlers attacked an Israeli army base on Tuesday in the West Bank, stoning Israeli soldiers in retaliation for the army removing “illegal” settlements that Jewish extremists establish wherever they want. 

It confuses them to read, as the New Israel Fund reports on its Web site, that “more than 10 years ago, the ultra-Orthodox community asked Israel’s public bus company, Egged, to provide segregated buses in their neighborhoods. By early 2009, more than 55 such lines were operating around Israel. Typically, women are required to enter through the bus back doors and sit in the back of the bus, as well as ‘dress modestly.’ ” 

It confuses them to read a Financial Times article from Israel on Monday, that said: “In recent weeks, the country has been consumed by an anguished debate over a series of new laws and proposals that many fear are designed to stifle dissent, weaken minority rights, restrict freedom of speech and emasculate the judiciary. They include a law that in effect allows Israeli communities to exclude Arab families; another that imposes penalties on Israelis advocating a boycott of products made in West Bank Jewish settlements; and proposals that would subject the supreme court to greater political oversight.”[...]

A survivor of incest asks, "Is calling the police the best solution?"

December 8, 2011

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn Shlita,

Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to you for having the courage to deal with this most sensitive, greatly disturbing topic of molestation and incest.

As a survivor of incest, I regularly read your blog, and have found through it much chizuk and help in coming to terms with my ordeals.  It is especially helpful for me to read about what others have to say regarding different aspects of this topic, which also pertain to me. Thus, there are two points I would love to see you address, and receive feedback from other readers.

I come from a very prominent family, highly ranked regarding shidduchim. And indeed, I and my siblings all did very beautiful shidduchim. (I actually remember when I got married a relative of my husband commented to my father that after he got to know me he concluded that my father must be an expert in “Chinuch Habonos” to have raised such an outstanding daughter.)  And yet my father molested me for many years, to the point that Rav Eliyashuv Shlita ruled years after my marriage, when my story was revealed to him, that we needed to redo our Ketubah, since I wasn’t a בתילה when I got married, as my original ketubah stated.

Now these are the two points that I would love to see you address in your blog, and hear what others have to say about them.

Firstly, there has been much talk lately about reporting abuse to the authorities. I understand the need to do so in order to protect other children, and in cases of molestation, to help victims find their voice and feel like justice has been done. However, what happens when the perpetrator is your father, and going to the police will expose your own family, and ruin their good name? I know it might sound trivial to worry about your family’s “name” at a time when it’s all just a façade’ and in truth the family is extremely dysfunctional, however the fact remains that having a good name in our communities does mean a lot. In addition, how is the victim expected to handle these intense emotions of knowing that it is because of them that their father is in jail? After all, “blood isn’t water,” and the victim will be forced to live with having incarcerated their own, and their siblings’ father, and the husband of their mother, etc.

I often ponder, “As a child going through the abuse, knowing what I know now as an adult that has been through close to 20 years of intense healing, what would I have wanted other adults to have done to help me back then? And I cannot say that reporting it to the authorities is the answer. I would have wished for someone, perhaps an aunt or other family member or family friend, to step in and remove me from my family, without exposing to the world what was really happening, (like by forcing my parents to send me to seminary, or by sending me to live with a grandparent with the excuse that the grandparents need a grandchild with them, etc.) In addition, I wish they would have sent me for therapy right then as a teenager.

Had the authorities been called into the picture, and my family would have been exposed, I fear I would have never been comfortable in the community again. Certainly I wouldn’t have been able to do the shidduch I did, or hold the prestigious job I hold It is sad, but it is just the fact, that our community would surely consider someone like myself as damaged goods, had they been told the truth. So I keep asking myself, is it really right for us to take a stand that calling in the authorities in such situations is the only correct thing to do? After all, isn’t it the victim’s life that we are here to improve, and does calling in the authorities, especially in cases of incest really help the victim in the long run?
(In her memoir “The Source of All Things,” Tracy Ross tells her story of being abused by her step-father, and how the police were called in. It seems pretty clear to me that calling the police might of stopped the abuse, yet is triggered a whole new range of problems. And this is someone growing up in the secular world,קל וחומר a victim growing up in our “heimishe” communities.)

My second question is about the incest-victim maintaining contact with their family many years down the line.I chose to politely but firmly severe ties with my family.  I never explained why I didn’t show up for family functions or why I moved out of town and hardly called home.  I just did it. It’s been many years now that I hardly have contact with my family, and I really don’t miss it at all. I find that being away from them allows me to thrive, and I have strong loving relationships with my husband’s family, (though they know nothing about the abuse,) that fills in for the need of family for me. (and I do have Daas Torah backing me on my position.) 

I feel like having connections with my family, (including my siblings,) undermines my very existence. My father, (although he has admitted to the abuse to me,) still maintains the image of being an upstanding Erliche Yid, respected by all as being really chashuv, and my mother and siblings continue to go along with this image. Thus, when I meet with them, I feel like I’m sort of buying into this image too, which by definition denies my truth, my very existence. And yet I need to admit that deep down I would like this fake image to remain intact, since I too benefit from it as I move through life in the “heimishe” communities. So I guess I can’t really blame my siblings for the role they play in maintaining the family image, yet I stay away because of the damage it does to my soul when I force myself to interact with the family as if all was just fine and dandy.

I would love to hear from others, especially other survivors, how they deal with family issues, and what works for them.

Thanks so much for giving me the space to air my thoughts and feelings.Wishing you much Hatzlacha in all that you do.

Is a person required to save another's life - if it causes him/her great embarrassment?

Everybody is aware that there is an obligation of saving others. It is also clear that one needs to exert effort and even expend money to save others. You are even allowed to speak lashon harah to save another's life. The question is a person required to suffer embarrassment and degradation to save another person's life? Rav Moshe Feinstein says yes.

Vayikra (19:16) states, “You shall not go around spreading gossip amongst your people nor shall you stand idly by the blood of your fellow man – I am the L‑rd.”

This is codified in Shulchan Aruch(C.M. 426:1): If you see someone drowning in the sea or being attacked by bandits or wild animals and it is possible to save him by yourself or to pay others to save him and yet you don’t save him or alternatively you hear non‑Jews or informers plotting to do him harm and yet you don’t inform him or alternatively you know that non‑Jews or bandits are planning to attack him and you are able dissuade them and yet you don’t or other such scenarios – you are violating “do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow (Vayikra 19:16).

 Chinuch( #237) adds This means not only are obligated to try and save his life yourself but you need to also take the trouble and hire others if that is what is needed. The basis of this mitzva is well known because if you try and save others then others will try and save you. This is the basis of civilization and G‑d desires that society be preserved.

However Sanhedrin (73a) notes that there are in fact two verses - the verse in Vayikra and the verse to return lost objects and saving a person is a type of returning a lost object. Whence do we know that if a man sees his neighbor drowning, mauled by beasts, or attacked by robbers, he is bound to save him? From the verse, Thou shalt not stand by the blood of thy neighbor.’ But is it derived from this verse? Is it not rather from elsewhere? Viz., Whence do we know [that one must save his neighbor from] the loss of himself? From the verse, And thou shalt restore him to himself!9 — From that verse I might think that it is only a personal obligation,10 but that he is not bound to take the trouble of hiring men [if he cannot deliver him himself]: therefore, this verse teaches that he must.

Rav Shlomo Kluger therefore learns from this gemora that in fact that the same parameters for returning lost objects applies to saving lives. In particular that just as in returning lost objects one does not need to embarrass and degrade himself (if it is not in accord with his dignity)- he doesn't have to cause himself embarrassment - even to save a life.

This conclusion is strongly rejected by Rav Moshe Feinstein (Y.D. 2:174.3)  [bottom of first colum] in his discussion of saving a person who attempted suicide.

Blogger not a journalist story - really about blogger trying to slander the innocent

NYTimes

Last week, a story came across my desk that seemed to suggest that a blogger had been unfairly nailed with a $2.5 million defamation award after a judge refused to give her standing as a journalist. A businessman who was the target of the blogger’s inquiries brought the suit. 

I went to work on a blog post, filled with filial umbrage, saddened that the Man once again had used a boot heel to crush truth and free speech. But after doing a little reporting, I began to think that what scanned as an example of a rich businessman using the power of the courts to silence his critic was actually something else: a case of a blogger using the Web in unaccountable ways to decimate the reputation of someone who didn’t seem to have it coming. 

The ruling on whether she was a journalist in the eyes of the law turned out to be a MacGuffin, a detail that was very much beside the point. She didn’t so much report stories as use blogging, invective and search engine optimization to create an alternative reality. Journalists who initially came to her defense started to back away when they realized they weren’t really in the same business.[...]

Prof. Kaplan responds to Rabbi Meisleman's attack on Rabbi Slifkin

 This is part of an article from Rabbi Slifkin's Blog. The full article can be accessed here.

The main problem with R. Meiselman’s reading of the Rav’s thought is that it is all black and white, lacking any balance or nuance. Had R. Meiselman, for instance, argued that the Rav’s concerns were primarily parochial and that universal concerns played only a minor role in his thought, I would have disagreed with him and argued that the weight of the evidence indicates otherwise, but his position would have had some plausibility and it would have made for an interesting debate. But no, such a nuanced statement does not seem to accord with R. Meiselman’s style. Rather, he has to argue that “The Rav in all his concerns was exceedingly parochial... and that one cannot find a single instance where the Rav was involved in any of the universal issues of his day.’’ This made it almost embarrassingly easy for me to disprove his claim by simply pointing to clear and explicit statements of the Rav in his essay “Confrontation’’ and in his position paper “On Interfaith Relationships’’ where the Rav does express universal concerns.

Similarly, had R. Meiselman claimed that the Rav maintains that the importance of the State of Israel has to be evaluated primarily in pragmatic terms, I would again have disagreed with him, but his position again would have had some plausibility, and it too would have made for an interesting debate. In such a circumstance R. Meiselman might even have had some basis for maintaining that the shmuess lends some credence to that more limited claim. But no, first R. Meiselman claims in his unnuanced fashion that the Rav maintains that “the importance of the State of Israel has to be evaluated purely in pragmatic terms’’ and that it “does not have halakhic meaning,’’ and then he, in equally unnuanced fashion, argues that “everything I said about Rav Yoshe Ber and Zionism is confirmed in ...the shmuess....It confirmed everything I had said on this topic.’’ Of course, had R. Meiselman admitted that for the Rav the religious significance of the State of Israel is not purely pragmatic, he would not have been able to arrive at the astonishing conclusion that “The Rav’s difference of opinion with other [Haredi] Torah giants was the degree of accommodation with the government [sic] of Israel. It existed on the pragmatic level only.’’

R. Slifkin’s praise and R. Meiselman’s critique of my article arose only tangentially in the course of their debate regarding the relationship between Torah and science. It is not my purpose here to enter into the substance of that debate; R. Slifkin certainly does not need my help.  I will only say that the same all or nothing approach, the same lack of nuance and balance that I have shown to be so prevalent in R. Meiselman’s reading of the teachings of the Rav are equally prevalent in his discussions of Torah and science.

Sports as environment for abuse & barrier for reporting

nytimes

But sports as an environment for sexual abuse is hardly new. Experts say it has all the significant ingredients that can lead to such abuse: coaches have close relationships with children and unsupervised access to them, while holding a position of trust and authority that can often keep children from reporting the problems to their parents or other authority figures. 

“It’s not new, but in sports it seems we are doomed to be shocked and appalled all over again,” said Dr. Sandra Kirby, an associate vice president for research at the University of Winnipeg, who led a study in the 1990s that found widespread instances of sexual misconduct involving coaches of the Canadian national team in various sports.[...]