mmunity Views
Editor's Notebook
ringing Wife Abuse
ut Of The Closet
The Yawn Of
Our Deliverance
1 ZOUSMER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
She
typified
much that is
right and per-
haps some that is
ludicrous about
being Jewish in
America. Her
home was warm
and inviting, fil-
1 with the aroma of chicken
ip, challah and freshly baked
pies. She taught her children
ae proud of their heritage and
enjoy their traditions.
My mother-in-law read the
'w York Post every day, de-
airing over the killings, the
afts, the white collar crimes.
Le fretted over the headlines
.d carefully adjusted her
nights and comments as she
termined the heritage of their
rpetrator. A crime, any crime,
itted by a Jew had to be
lamed, justified and some-
excused. Mom never toler-
anyone's criticism of family
d loved ones and, if you were
wish, you were, by definition,
roily and loved. For, in her
)rld, Jewish people did not lie,
eat, steal and certainly never
used their wives.
A short while ago, the entire
untry was repelled by the sto-
of Lisa Steinberg, who was
!aten to death by her adoptive
ther, Joel Steinberg. Mr.
,einberg's wife, Hedda Nuss-
tum, suffered years of physi-
1 and mental abuse caused by
a. husband.
While newspapers through-
t the country had been re-
rting that family violence was
*ming the lives of 4000 bat-
women and between 2000
d 5000 children each year,
us case seemed particularly
[. turbing. The Steinbergs were
*te, educated, middle class
d Jewish. It took, perhaps,
eir tragic story to bring wife
d child abuse out of the Jew-
h community's closet.
The incidence of domestic vi-
Lence in the Jewish com_muni-
does not vary greatly from
at of the general community.
atistics tell us that battering
the single major cause of in-
to women, exceeding rapes,
auggings and even auto acci-
6nts. As Jews, we have become
he victims of our own myths,
elieving that Jewish men do
.ot beat their wives. In recent
ears, while we have become
ware of drugs, AIDS, divorce,
brhite collar crime and alco-
Lolism in the Jewish communi-
, we have failed to recognize
at spouse abuse may be the
ost common unreported crime
both America and in the Jew-
h community.
Other Jewish communities,
in Los Angeles, Houston, Toron-
to, Minneapolis, Long Island,
Chicago and Cleveland, have
shed some light on this problem.
They tell us that abuse exists
in your neighborhood as well as
mine, among the observant and
non-affiliated, infiltrating fam-
ilies with economic difficulties
as well as those with great,
wealth, spanning every age
group and level of education.
Research has warned us that
a person can be both abusive
and kind, violent and a re-
spected member of the commu-
nity. Abusers are deliberate in
their actions and contrary to
Abuse is a
learned response
to stress.
endure the beatings for 9-17
years before they speak out. The
fact that our Jewish communi-
ty does not recognize the prob-
lem and talk about it must
make the loneliness unbearable.
We are going to have to work
together on this intolerable sit-
uation. For neither Jewish Fam-
ily Service, which runs Windows
Family Violence Prevention
Program, nor the National
Council of Jewish Women,
which will fund SAFE PLACE,
a soon to be opened Jewish shel-
ter, can do it alone.
Together, the Jewish com-
munity will have to recognize
that there is a very real problem
in our homes. And, if we do not
want to save ourselves, we had
better start to think about our
children. That children growing
up in a house of violence will be
free from harm is not only un-
likely, not only hard to believe,
M
rtry
i
Inn Zousmer is president of
e National Council of
ewish Women, Greater
etroit Section.
Art.. 1.try Kew Uwe. of Me Roarolu, Ten.
Cep,,I, 1990. KewKreAt.- OnIntmeel by Los Angeles TA.es
popular thought very much in
control of their behavior. It is es-
timated that 80 percent of men
who batter have never commit-
ted any other type of crime.
Abuse is a learned response
to stress. Over two-thirds of men
who batter either witnessed vi-
olence or were themselves
abused as children.
Wife assault is rarely an iso-
lated incident. The assault be-
comes more severe over time
and often results in serious, if
not permanent, injury or death.
One-fifth of visits to emergency
medical services are the result
of wife abuse.
The most difficult part of the
problem may be understanding
why women stay in such a re-
lationship. Shame, isolation, low
self-esteem, denial and inabili-
ty to access family funds all en-
ter the picture.
Barbara Harris, who runs
Transition Center, a shelter for
battered women in Far Rock-
away, N.Y., reports that most
non-Jewish women suffer abuse
for 5-7 years before seeking
help. However, Jewish women
but impossible. The pain of do-
mestic violence reverberates
throughout the home.
If we are to succeed in elimi-
nating abuse in this communi-
ty, we are going to have to unite
our efforts to provide legal as-
sistance, financial aid, job place-
ment and emotional support.
Most of all, we have to talk
about it. The wall of communi-
ty silence makes it impossible
for the victim to admit that
there is a problem.
We must use every effort to
empower victims to believe that
they are worthwhile human be-
ings and deserve to be treated
with respect. We must make
sure that they will not be alone.
We must all be there to help, to
help the victims become the sur-
vivors.
NOTE: SAFE PLACE is a
shelter for Jewish battered
women and their children that
can accommodate the needs of
those who keep kosher. The
Shelter is a joint project of the
National Council of Jewish
Women, Greater Detroit Section
and Jewish Family Service.
GARY ROSENBLATT EDITOR
Let me just
come right out
and say it up
front: too much
of organized
American Jew-
ish life is dull,
predictable and
unimaginative.
That goes for synagogue
services and Federation
meetings and organizational
banquets and even Jewish ex-
pos. It applies to Orthodox,
Conservative, Reform, Re-
constructionist and secular
groups. Indeed, the one uni-
fying force in Jewish life is
not celebrating the Shabbat
or contributing to UJA but
rather stifling a yawn at a
public event where the only
people still smiling at the end
are those who are being hon-
ored or who have undergone
a lobotomy.
Maybe I'm jaded after
more than 20 years of at-
tending these functions and
certainly there are wonderful
exceptions, but for the most
part we are, as creatures of
habit, doing the same things
as a community that we have
done for decades. And if our
goal is to attract and inspire
younger Jews, it's not work-
ing.
We worry about anti-Semi-
tism and assimilation and in-
termarriage, but what are we
offering our savvy sons and
daughters as an alternative
to the cacophony of kvetching
about perpetuating Jewish
continuity? Why should they
care when we haven't demon-
strated to them what's so spe-
cial about living Jewish lives?
Examples abound. We
have long been known as The
People of the Book, but per-
haps it is more accurate to
say that we are The People of
the Banquet. Many of us
spend our evenings getting
dressed up to attend an ex-
pensive, catered dinner for a
worthy Jewish organization.
Too often the honorees are
the ones who provide finan-
cial rather than sweat-and-
blood support, and the Jewish
concept of entertainment is
often an endless list of speak-
ers.
Of course I understand
why that is. I know that we
grease the wheels of commu-
nal activity by allowing
wealthy donors to chair
events and offer up canned
speeches, which we dutifully
applaud. But there's got to be
more to this enterprise of
American Jewish life, and
there is.
Several months ago I at-
tended a conference of Jew-
ish, Protestant and Catholic
clergy discussing how to at-
tract more people to church
or synagogue. A common
theme was that the weekly
services were dull. Only the
sermon changed from week
to week. More than one
minister or rabbi acknowl-
edged that, were they av-
erage congregants them-
selves, they wouldn't show
up, either. Such comments
were followed by nods of
recognition, and then the
participants went on to an-
other topic.
But wait a second. If the
church or synagogue ser-
vice is spiritless and pre-
dictable, and everyone
knows it, why should peo-
ple attend? The topic sim-
ply wasn't dealt with. Too
painful.
And yet there are excep-
tions to the rule. There are
synagogues that have flour-
ished with creative ap-
proaches to the service,
lively singing and partici-
pation, or enterprising so-
cial action programs. What
they have in common, re-
gardless of their brand of
Judaism, is a spark of pas-
sion, a thread of commit-
ment that bonds worship-
pers and gives them a feel-
ing of being part of a
greater whole.
That's what Jewish com-
munity is, or should be, all
about. The very concept of
communal worship with a
minyan, or quorum of 10,
suggests that we are
strengthened as individu-
als when we pray collec-
tively. And that is why the
prayers emphasize "we"
rather than "I." The mes-
sage is that we're in this to-
gether; we need to carry
that theme over to more of
our synagogues, where
communal worship can be
empowered by a deeper un-
derstanding of the prayers
in our liturgy.
The irony is that the
same communal organiza-
tions now calling for a re-
vitalization of Jewish life
operate in a way that per-
petuates a sense of bore-
dom. It's a given that
federation board meetings
are scripted, with little dis-
cussion or debate before
resolutions are passed.
With so many important
and complex issues on the
communal agenda, from
how best to improve Jew-
ish education to dealing
with intermarriage or gays
or the Mideast, we have to
go out of our way to make
such meetings dull. But we
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