Abuse in the Jewish Community: An Orthodox-Friendly Resource List

Posted by JewishMom on Nov 2, 2011 on jewishmom.com

 

Recently a famous rebbetzin was brought in to give us Nachlaot moms some chizuk in the aftermath of the pedophile crisis that you moms have been hearing about so much over recent months.

Afterwards, I waited in the line to ask the rebbetzin a personal question. When my turn arrived I told her how much I have enjoyed listening to recordings of her classes over the years, and what an honor it is to finally meet her in person. And then I asked her what I really had on my mind:

“Rebbetzin, maybe it’s a bad idea to remain in a neighborhood this dangerous. Maybe we should move somewhere safer?”

This rebbetzin, who up until then had been searching in her purse for something, abruptly stopped her searching, and looked up at me with sad, piercing eyes. She asked me, “And where exactly is this safe place you are planning to move to?”

The rebbetzin then went on to list, at length, the Orthodox communities throughout Israel and the world that over recent years have been hit by crises similar to the nightmare we are currently enduring in Nachlaot.

Dr. Michael Salamon, a clinical psychologist with 2 decades of experience treating frum victims of abuse, is the author of the newly-released book Abuse in the Jewish Community: Religious and Communal Factors that Undermine the Apprehension of Offenders and the Treatment of Victims (Urim). This excellent, comprehensive book provides harrowing statistics and stories that illustrate the extent as well as the causes of this widespread evil within our midst.

On behalf of all JewishMOMs everywhere I would like to thank Dr. Salamon and his publisher (and mine) Tzvi Mauer as well as Rabbi Blau, who provides the book’s haskama, for taking the brave step to publish and support this controversial book in order to keep our children safe, IY”H.

I am reprinting here the book’s extensive list of Orthodox-friendly links and resources, which I hope will enable prevention of and treatment for abuse in our holy communities throughout the world (feel free to recommend other resources in the comments below):

Abuse Prevention and Treatment Resources

http://www.miklat.org/ Confronting Domestic Violence in Israel:
Offers shelters for women, transitional housing, hostel for teens
and legal aid for all.

http://www.batmelech.org/index-english.html Bat Melech-Miklat
works with families and women of all ages addressing domestic
violence, from economic empowerment to breaking the inter-
generational cycle of violence, and from advocacy in the courts to
lobbying the government.

http://www.stopitnow.com/warnings A comprehensive site
designed for parents to prevent sexual abuse of children.

http://www.darkness2light.org/ Programs for prevention of
childhood sexual abuse.

http://www.ndvh.org/ The National Domestic Violence Hotline:
Education, resources and links.

http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/programs/types/
sexualabuse.cfm The Child Welfare Information Gateway for
Prevention of Abuse and Neglect.

http://www.aap.org/publiced/B!_SexAbuse.htm The American
Academy of Pediatrics: Guidelines for keeping children safe from
predators.

http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/ Child protection and abuse
prevention information.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/childsexualabuse.html The
US National Institute of Health: Source and reference site for
articles, programs and guidelines for child and domestic safety.

http://www.heroproject.org/ Organized by the Pennsylvania
Coalition Against Rape: Provides consultation.

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/ace/index.htm The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention: Portal to the study of Adverse
Childhood Experiences.

http://www.endabuse.org/ The Family Violence Prevention Fund: Programs for children and families.

http://www.endabuse.org/userfiles/file/Consensus.pdf National
Consensus: Guidelines on identifying and responding to domestic
violence victimization. Provides specific recommendations
for assessing and responding to domestic violence that may be
applied to health care settings; also useful as a general database.

Some Suggested Readings

For Children
[CJ Weisberg's additions: After this list was compiled Artscroll released the 1st Orthodox children's book ever to educate frum kids on how to protect themselves from abuse:
*Let's Stay Safe by Bracha Goetz (Artscroll)
*No-No the Little Seal by Sherri Patterson is a highly-recommended book that enables Orthodox moms to effectively educate their kids about the dangers of abuse in a modest way.]
• No More Secrets. San Luis Obispo: Impact Publishers.
• Amazing Spider-Man and Power Pack on Sexual Abuse.
• Private Zone. The Chas. Franklin Press: WA.
• What If I Say No! Bakersfield: M. H. Cap. & Co.
• The Silent Children: A Parent’s Guide to the Prevention of Child
Sexual Abuse.
• Once I Was a Little Bit Frightened and Red Flag, Green Flag. Rape
and Abuse Crisis Center.

Adolescents
• Daddy’s Girl. New York: Berkeley Books.
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
• Kiss Daddy Goodnight. New York: Pocket Books.
• The Color Purple. New York: Pocket Books.

Adults
• The Right To Innocence: Healing the Trauma of Childhood Sexual
Abuse. New York: Ivy Books.
• Betrayal of Innocence. New York: Penguin Books.
• Victims No Longer: Men “Recovering from Incest and Other Sexual
Child Abuse.” New York: Nevraumont Publishing Co.
• AM I BAD? “Recovering from Abuse (New Horizons in Therapy).
Ewart, III, H. B. Ann Arbor, MI: Loving Healing Press.
• “EPAI” Your Life: A Program for “Recovery from Incest & Child-
hood Sexual Abuse. McKinnon, M. and Taylor, M. Ann Arbor,
MI: Loving Healing Press.
• Gifts From the Child Within: Self-discovery and Self-recovery
through Re-Creation Therapy.
• Breaking Through Betrayal: And Recovering the Peace
Within
• The Trauma Myth
• Tips for survivors of sexual abuse: A pocket book of wisdom

Videos
• The Color Purple
• Nuts
• Something About Amelia
• Winnie the Pooh – Too Smart for Strangers

Boredom and Judaism

by Gil Student

Boredom is a fascinating topic but I never expected to discover a literature about it. How could anyone dare to write on the subject? Who is confident in their own exciting prose to risk writing a boring book on boredome? Yet there is a literature. I recently read Dr. Erica Brown’s book Spiritual Boredom: Rediscovering the Wonder of Judaism and learned a good deal about myself and Judaism.

There are two main themes in this book. The first is how to use Judaism to avoid boredom and how to spice up your own Judaism, two overlapping ideas. The second is the importance of embracing boredom. Yes, these are two contradictory themes. But don’t let that bother you.

There are a great few Bloom County comic strips in which Opus is looking for a way to lose weight. He goes from one fad diet to another, each time failing. All the while, his friends are telling him to eat better and exercise more but he insists there must be a better way. There isn’t. The best things in life come through hard work. Overcoming boredom, Dr. Brown tells us, is the same. It requires “restraint, training, and self-control” (p. 83).

Israel’s government adopts PJ LIbrary

by Jacob Berkman

The government of Israel and a North American foundation are partnering on a literacy program for Israeli pre-schoolers.

Israel’s government will invest $500,000 to bring to Israel the Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s PJ Library, which in the U.S. gives to more than 100,000 Jewish children free books with Jewish content.

The program has existed in Israel on a small scale, but the government’s boost will help the give free books each month to some 40,000 underserved children.

Sifriyat Pijama, as it is known in Hebrew, will distribute books through Israel’s schools. The books will go to children whose families have reduced or restricted financial means.

“It is exciting for us to see that the Israeli Ministry of Education finds the Sifriyat Pijama program worthy of such a large investment,” says Joanna S. Ballantine, executive director of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Global Day of Jewish Learning

The Global Day of Learning is inspired by and celebrates the historic achievements of the world renowned Jewish scholar, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. On November 7, 2010, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz will complete his 45-year-long project of translating the Talmud. On this day, Jews around the world will join in together in a Global Day of Jewish Learning to celebrate our shared identify, history and heritage.

The Knoxville Jewish community will celebrate this momentous event with a program Sunday morning, November 7: God, Love and Tzedakah – a global learning experience. Information regarding activities planned for every age group will be forthcoming. In the meantime, please mark your calendars for Sunday, November 7!

Jewish Book Month event

Sunday, November 7 at 2:00 pm

Location tba

The Knoxville Jewish Alliance is pleased to announce David Kushner will be the guest author at our Jewish Book Month event this year. David Kushner is an award-winning journalist and author. His books include Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America’s Legendary Suburb, Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas, and Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. Each book is in development for film. He is currently working on a new book, and will be featured in the anthologies The Best American Crime Reporting 2010 as well as The Best Music Writing 2010.

Kushner is a contributing editor of Wired, Rolling Stone, and Spectrum. He has also written for publications including the New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and Details. A frequent guest on TV and radio, he is the digital culture commentator for National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday.

Kushner is an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University, and speaks at college and corporate events.

Tradition and Its Discontents

Families, Rabbis and Education

by Yehudah Mirsky

Judaism teaches the unity of body and soul. The soul has gotten most of the ink, but in recent decades historians have made an effort to give the body its say by uncovering and interpreting the material circumstances that, together with the learning and the spirituality, have comprised the weave of Jewish life. Prominent among these historians is the Hebrew University’s Shaul Stampfer, whose new book, Families, Rabbis, and Education, explores the diverse currents coursing through the 19th-century Jewish heartlands of Eastern Europe.

Like his mentor, the late, great, Jacob Katz, Stampfer adopts a sociological approach to his materials, culled from decades of research in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, and other sources, both printed and archival, both sacred (halakhah, sermons, commentaries) and secular (communal records, census reports, newspaper accounts, memoirs). These he reads in light of one another and with an eye toward disclosing the processes that held Jewish society together, enabled it to deal with change, and, when internal and external challenges seemed to tear it apart, framed both its debates and their attempted resolutions. Throughout, his writing is marked by historical and theoretical sophistication mixed with sound common sense and a refreshing absence of jargon.

Vital Signs: Betting on Jewish Literacy

by Jack Wertheimer

Over the past three months I’ve published six essays in Jewish Ideas Daily on specific examples of people and programs that seem to me to offer welcome news—”Vital Signs”—for the future of American Jewish life. My list was hardly exhaustive; it could have been easily expanded to twice or perhaps even three times its size. Looking back now at my examples—a summer camp, a supplementary high school, a Hebrew-language initiative for young children, an adult-education program, a fellowship program for young community leaders, and a prayer group—I’m struck by the ubiquity of a leitmotif that, directly or indirectly, runs throughout all six.

That leitmotif, broadly put, is education. Nothing new about that, one might say; but one would be wrong. To be sure, Torah study has long been a core value of rabbinic Judaism. But for much of the past century, the people of the book in this country seem to have transferred their devotion almost exclusively to the secular domain, becoming authoritative students of every conceivable professional and academic discipline while for the most part remaining ignorant of the great texts of their own tradition, let alone of the Hebrew language. Only in our own time has the ground begun to shift.

A New Book by Chaim Walder

Advice for Life

by SPG

From Feldheim.com:

As an experienced educational counselor and prolific author, Rabbi Chaim Walder has dealt extensively with relationships between children and parents, students and teachers – as well as a person’s relationship with himself. Drawn from the author’s vast knowledge and flavored with his engaging literary style, this book bursts with a wealth of information, ideas and advice, along with practical suggestions for applying them. Culled from more than a thousand articles written during the author’s almost two decades as a Yated Ne’eman columnist, Rabbi Walder tackles the issues that are foremost on people’s minds. Also included are the author’s opinions on a variety of topics, from mental health issues to money matters – all easily referenced in a convenient, concise index.

I always associate Chaim Walder with his great story books, namely the true life stories in People Speak and Kids Speak. Another favorite of mine is his novel That’s Me, Tzviki Green. So I guess this is going to be a bit of a break in a tradition of story books from Rabbi Walder, with what appears to me to be his first English book on Parenting. I’m curious whether there will be any more stories in this new release. To find out I guess we’ll just have to check out the book when it comes out. Feldheim lists it for release tomorrow, April 27th. If you happen to take a look give me an update on how it compares to the older Chaim Walder books and the style of the book format.

From The Jewish Book World

The original text of the article may be found here.