WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
By Michelle Boorstein April 1
Many people look to their religious leaders for guidance in getting through trauma. But what about when the leaders are themselves caught up in the trauma?
That’s what happened at Kesher Israel, a prominent D.C. synagogue that was rocked last fall when its longtime rabbi, Barry Freundel, was charged with secretly videotaping women preparing to use a ritual bath. Freundel, a national Orthodox leader whose arrest made global news, hasn’t said anything since except to enter a guilty plea in February. His wife, Sharon, a well-regarded and popular Jewish educator in the District who shared in leadership at Kesher – a common role for a rabbi’s wife, who is called “rebbetzin” – remained publicly silent as well, until last week, when she gave an unusual and striking lecture.
After six months of pained, emotional and sometimes angry community meetings and worldwide media coverage, Sharon Freundel, director of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at the Jewish Primary Day School in Northwest Washington, chose to communicate to her community for the first time with a talk called “Post-Traumatic Stress Responses in the TaNaKH,” or the Hebrew Bible.
The talk on March 22 was simultaneously intimate and removed. Here was the wife of the central figure of this hugely publicized drama, speaking about sex abuse and murder and the mysteries of the human spirit and the limitations of marriage – but never referring specifically to herself. Instead she spoke about trauma – and responses to trauma – in the Bible, assuming the posture of a teacher. The talk was going on at two levels. Freundel declined to comment for this article.
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