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	It Can Happen in the Best of Families By Avi Novis-Deutsch Haaretz April 24, 2008 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977944.html Until not long ago, most of us had hardly heard about cases of familial violence within ultra-Orthodox society, so the recent media reports have come as something of a shock. It may be hard to imagine such things happening in any family, let alone among those whose lives are led in such close observance of Jewish law. It would be a mistake, however, to lump all the recent cases in the same category. There is, in fact, little to link violence that appears to be motivated by a religious authority, and sexual violence and incest that are committed by ultra-Orthodox Jews. The first phenomenon, in which cult-like leaders have been reported to have gathered around them small groups of followers, who, in obedience to a religious doctrine set out by those leaders, have tortured their children, can be attributed to the perverse direction religion and religious authorities can sometimes take. It is a chilling reminder of how religion can sometimes overcome our moral will and become the motivation for immoral acts. Much more common, however, is the phenomenon of religious people being involved in incest and sexual abuse. In fact, such acts have nothing to do with the religious identity of the perpetrator. Ongoing research into domestic sexual abuse demonstrates the near-impossibility of predicting whether someone is at risk of becoming either a victim or a predator. On the contrary, from studies, and from the calls received at various telephone hotlines, we know that violators are as likely to be from families of means as from a working-class background; can range from religiously secular to Haredi; and are both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. The numbers pretty much correlate to the general ethnic and social breakdown in society. The message, then, is that not only is each one of us at risk of becoming a victim, but also that any one of us has the potential to be a perpetrator. That perhaps is the hardest thing to digest - and that might be where the main problem lies. For, to contend properly with this problem as a society, we must acknowledge that sex crimes happen here, among us - whoever that "us" might be. The numbers are shocking: One out of six to seven males and one out of three females will be a victim at some point during their lives. It can be a colleague from work, a neighbor, one of our children, or us. In the last weekly Torah portion we read, Aharei Mot, as well as next week's (Kedoshim), we encounter a list of restrictions on sexual behavior (Leviticus 18, 20), the same list that is read in synagogue on Yom Kippur, and which was presented by Moses to the Children of Israel just after the dedication of the Tabernacle. The list serves to remind us that we can't hide from this issue, that we can't argue that it is not relevant to us. From the picture being drawn, it is clear, too, that sexual abuse has nothing to do with the victim's behavior or character: He or she can be young or old, attractive or less so, dressed provocatively or modestly. Most incidents occur in the home of either the victim or the abuser, and in most cases the attacker is known to the victim. It becomes clear, then, that no place is safe from sexual abuse. Sounds ominous, no? I would suggest, however, that resolving never again to let your kids out of your sight would be the wrong conclusion to draw. The fact that sexual abuse can happen to anyone, anywhere, is underlined by the Talmudic notion that everyone is subject to the temptation to become an abuser ("ein apotropus le'arayot"). Accepting this reality is a necessary step to being able to talk about it. We must also become more attentive to those who may have endured sexual abuse. Once we open our ears, we enable the victims to share their secrets, so those secrets will stop eating them up from inside. When a story of abuse is told, we should believe it, and provide the victim with understanding, and remember that he or she did not do anything wrong. Last week, on this page, Roni Singer-Heruti lamented the way our society relates to female perpetrators more harshly than those who are male. She was right, but I wish for the day when men who have been the victims of sexual abuse will be as willing to speak up like their female counterparts. If women today are more easily able to share their secrets, in the understanding that people will believe them, it is in large part due to 30 years of hard work by women's organizations. The message of reading the section on sexual sins during the holiest day of the Hebrew calendar should be clear: We can talk about sexual abuse and we can listen. If you wish to make the setting where you teach or work a safe place for victims of sexual abuse, volunteers from the rape-crisis and other centers have been trained to help. Their support is not mean to invite a discourse on things that never happened, but rather to help create a safe environment in which people who suffer in silence speak out. You can learn more about the topic by calling the hotline for abused women (dial 1202) or for men (1203). And of course we are always looking for more volunteers. Rabbi Avi Novis-Deutsch, rabbi of Mayanot Congregation in Jerusalem's Talpiot neighborhood, is a volunteer at the national religious hotline for abused men and youth (02-532-8000).
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