For the past several years, I’ve watched the websites and the blogs when it comes to sexual molestation within the Jewish community.
I’ve noticed and learned so much.
There are so many who wish to offer counsel from their “expert” perches inside the organizational cage of societal structure.
We don’t hear enough, however from the real experts in the field of sexual abuse…the victims, the survivors.
We don’t hear enough, because so many are so afraid to be stigmatized. So many are so afraid of the results of their courage.
And this is a huge, huge mistake.
Sexual molestation, abuse whatever we call it is like the smoke from a fire. Even though the flames are long ago doused, the stench of the smoke still lingers on in the place of the fire. That’s what abuse does. It haunts its victims. It is there when they make their decisions about friendships, about jobs, about education, about child rearing, about religion.
And there are so many here in the Baltimore Jewish community who have been victimized by this. Some have memories that are decades old, yet like ice figures they are often frozen in place from seeking help or exposing their perpetrators.
We cannot pretend that this toxic problem doesn’t exist among us. We must do what we can to help welcome those victims who quietly suffer to come out of their places of hiding and seek to begin living full lives.
Please don’t make them feel awkward. Give them a place of welcome.
And if they aren’t too enthusiastic about their faith right now, that’s okay. Welcome them anyway. Bring people around through kindness and friendship and trust. Victims and survivors so need to be able to trust again.
“Denial is not just a river in Egypt” Mark Twain
When my stepson hurled an object at me and nearly broke my nose, his father said “He happened to throw something and it happened to hit you.”
When I told him to tell his son that the next time I would file assault charges, he told me that he was a very smart lawyer and would see to it that I ended up penniless on the streets.
Abuse and sexual assault are crimes that require cooperation. Refusing to be the codependent is the only action a responsible parent can take.
Protecting abusers and predators only leads to a feeling of self-confidence that they can get away with it. If the predators’ parents had let them feel the full consequence of their first action, they may have been saved - or at least their future victims.
Phil,
I am so proud of the guts that you have to tell this story. Steve is having a difficult time adjusting to reality - and this must article must be helping him heal.
As a “frum” Baltimore native, I have a few friends who had similar things happen when we were children, and the establishment did cover it up.
The right “yesheva” crowd is sexually deprived and therefore more .....................
I saw your cover story.
Very Very sad. I am amazed how well put together he still sounded. To simply not be Orthodox anymore is such a small price for this young man to pay. How many people have committed suicide or murder for far less?
I hope given his still amazing connection and feeling towards the holocaust through his grandmother, that the right caring and responsible Orthodox leaders (maybe they do not exist here but they do exist) speak, listen and care for him.
He deserves so much from so many people, I hope he comes back to a more normal Orthodox environment. That is not always easy to find either but it exists and his feeling that a G-d is still real to him leaves some hope.
You deserve quite a reward for exposing this. Knowing Orthodoxy, you likely are getting much flak. I hope you feel so much personal satisfaction for writing this article and giving this young man a forum that may very well help him heal and what could be anymore important then that?
G-d bless both of you.
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