DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – LONDON JEWISH NEWS

Rabbi Melinda Michelson-Carr is rabbi of Ealing Liberal Synagogue and has an MA in Healthcare Chaplaincy.

Contact: Cara Wides - 020 7631 9831 - c.wides@liberaljudaism.org

“AYT LACHASHOT, V’AYT L’DABAYR”- (Kohelet. 3:7) “A TIME TO KEEP SILENCE AND A TIME TO SPEAK” We face the sad fact that domestic violence occurs in our community. We cannot collude with the myth that all Jewish families are respectful and loving. This myth, idealizing Jewish families, is also perpetuated outside our community. In reality, there is no prototype Jewish family – families reflect all permutations, even violence.

This is painful for us and as a coping mechanism some of us retreat into denial. Survivors of violence often fear bringing shame to family and community by speaking out. They should not suffer in silence, nor be ostracized for asserting that they have no “shalom bayit” or peaceful Home > News > News Archive. Rather than the “peace” and “wholeness” “shalom” implies they face physical, sexual and emotional abuse. This shatters lives, leaving broken households.

Survivors can feel fragmentation, shame, guilt, anger and concern for family safety. Our responsibility is to speak out against such violence and not to perpetuate silence surrounding it. Rabbis should address these issues in sermons and confront, in study sessions, texts that both condemn such behaviour and those seeking to justify it. Abusive behaviour is unacceptable and destructive and nothing justifies it. We can also provide our young people in cheder, Kabbalat Torah, Youth Movements and Jewish Day Schools with a safe environment in which to discuss respect and dignity within relationships. Within and outside our community are a number of resources offering support to families suffering with domestic violence. One such resource is Jewish Women’s Aid – it is the only refuge in Europe providing a safe environment for all Jewish women and their children and has a helpline, drop-in group and counselling services.

May we offer survivors support, making it permissive for them, as well as perpetrators of abuse, to seek rabbinic and other professional help. Abuse is not “time to keep silence”, rather let us nurture a community which embraces and creates “time to speak”.