DIVORCE

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didn't • want to make love to him
anymore, I didn't want to -touch him.
"He was more interested in compu-
ters and machines than people and
their feelings," she said. "Divorce
hurts. It hurts you; it hurts your chil-
dren. You live this life of second guess-
ing yourself. I think the anger is part
of the healing you go through."
The central theme at last
November's Council of Jewish Federa-
tions' General Assembly was the Jew-
ish community's need to resettle one
million Soviet emigres. Almost every
workshop and seminar dealt with this
issue. But there were other workshops
that also commanded attention, one of
them being on AIDS, another on
intermarriage and a third on divorce.
The CJF heard a lecture delivered
by Detroit psychologist Dr. Lynda Giles
on how divorce within the Jewish
community causes what she termed
"the feminization of poverty."
"Divorced Jewish women are a true
minority in a minority religion that
values family," Dr. Giles said. "This
increases a woman's sense of isolation
and affects her sense of self esteem.
"There are no role models for divorc-
ed Jewish women," she said. "When
we think of a Jewish grandmother and
mother, we don't think of a divorced
woman. Instead, we have images come
to mind that are associated with the
warmth of tradition and the sights and
smells of the Shabbat meal. There's
the omnipresent aroma of chicken
soup and matzah balls and visual
images of lace tablecloths and polished
candlesticks. These are not images of
the Jewish woman alone."
Dr. Giles said Jewish women find
after a divorce that they need to
reevaluate themselves in terms of
their social desirability and
marketability instead of focusing all of
their energies towards parenting and
maintaining the home.
Margaret Weiner, associate exec-
utive director at Jewish Family Ser-
vice, knows a relationship is in trouble
when she hears a spouse talk about
getting married for self-fulfillment.
She said young people getting married
need to understand that life ful-
fillment comes from within, not
from someone else. Expecting an-
other person to complete you is
more often than not an unreal expec-
tation level that leads to a failed rela-
tionship.
Divorce, she said, is an American
thing; it's the price Jews are paying
for further assimilation into American
society. When it happens, it can be
often more difficult to come to terms
with than a person dying.

24

FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1991

r.

"It's not easy to watch a marriage
die," Mrs. Weiner said. "It's the death
of a dream, and in the Jewish com-
munity it's perceived as failure."
At JFS, 15 percent of the total 1990
client load concerned divorce. JFS
offers everything from individual
marriage therapy to joint therapy. to
children's work therapy. There is even
a pre-marital workshop.
"We are willing to try everything we
know to help a marriage stay
together," Mrs. Weiner said. "We look
at everything the marriage is, and we
ask the husband and wife many times
along the way if they are willing to
live with the consequences of divorce."
For 25 years, Abraham Selesny has
provided legal counsel for those seek-
ing divorce. And like JFS, he'll
first talk to a husband and wife about
getting counsel either from their
rabbi, a psycholgist, a family
counselor or JFS. He'll also advise
the couple on their rights concerning
custody, alimony and child support.
Mr. Selesny said that divorce doesn't
happen overnight, that it is a process.
People have grown apart or they've
"matured" out of a relationship. He
said that by the time the couple
reaches him, the die is pretty much
cast.
One of the major problem areas Mr.
Selesny sees is money. One of the
partners has handled the couple's
money for 20 years and the other
hasn't a clue of where the assets and
liabilities are. There is, he said, a
grieving and denial process, but there
is also a process of practicalities.
Mr. Selesny said that the stigma of
divorce in the Jewish community is a
great deal less than it once was. In the
very religious community, it is still
kept relatively quiet, he said. There
are issues that are exclusively Jewish
when it comes to divorce (see sidebar).
He has worked on judgements that list
the places where children are per-
mitted to eat when one spouse does not
keep kosher while the other does.
Other judgements have specified that
the children must spend the first day
of Rosh Hashanah with one parent
and the second day with the other.
"You see these sorts of judgements
because you are seeing a lot more Jews
walk through the door for a divorce,"
he said. "The old classic family of the
bubbie living with the husband and
wife and having all the answers for
their marriage problems is over."
Mr. Selesny added that often when a
husband and wife split, they feel a cer-
tain bitterness to the Jewish commun-
ity. He said they might pull their kids
from day schools or they might be
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