Who’s Most Vulnerable to Abuse

By Eliyahu Federman

Over 100 individuals convened March 8, at Bais Rivkah in Crown Heights to discuss and address adolescent abuse in the Jewish community.

Noted lecturer and Chabad.org columnist Bronya Shaffer organized the event as part of a series of lectures on protecting children.

Professor Gavriel Fagin discussed his challenges working with offenders. He explained that abusers were often abused themselves but the claim that the abused are more likely to victimize is not supported by any statistics.

Psychologist Dr. David Pelcovitz talked about how the nature of teens is conducive to secrecy recounting the joke how teens tell their parents to bud out of their lives but to first take them to the mall.

He said parents need to be hyper vigilant for any sudden unexpected changes in behavior and let their children know that they love them no matter what.

“Emphasizing to teens that nothing will lead to loss of that love will make it more likely that teens will feel empowered to speak out,” he said. “Make them feel comfortable and unashamed speaking to you.”

Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Henna White started by saying that “if you know someone is in trouble you have a place to go to,” referring to Project Kol Tzedek.

Project Kol Tzedek (Hebrew for ‘Voices of Justice’) is a program offering culturally sensitive support, assistance and advocacy for victims of abuse. The phone number for Kol Tzedek is 718.250.300 and the caller can remain completely anonymous. Any potential incidents of abuse should be immediately reported to the police and District Attorney’s office.

White emphasized how the District Attorneys office maintains complete confidentiality of the victim/survivor. If the survivor chooses to remain anonymous the DA office will respect that and according to Civil Rights Laws is not permitted to go forward with a potential prosecution unless they have the consent of the survivor.

She declined to comment on the number of schools in Brooklyn that have turned over potential perpetrators to the authorities and that have cooperated with an investigation of an alleged offender, but she did tell me that there were over fifty current pending cases of offenders in Brooklyn being prosecuted through project Kol Tzedek.

Hillel Sternstien, Coordinator Project RESPECT of Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, spoke about how youth who were abused are far more likely to become disillusioned with their Jewish identity because the abuser is often a teacher, therapist or family member who represents the religious worldview of the adolescent.

The adolescent will associate their negative experiences with the Jewish culture they were raised in and can end up resenting Judaism as a result, he said.

One of Sternstien’s most striking points was that children who are raised without knowledge of their bodies or intimacy issue are “more vulnerable to abuse” and less likely to speak about it because of the shame and stigma associated with the subject.

Sternstien explained that lack of discussion around the human body and intimacy, in essence, robs youth of the ability to speak because they are not provided with the proper language.

Dr. Pelcovitz recounted a study that showed when individuals were alone in front of a mountain they were statistically more likely to perceive traversing it as challenging. When individuals were with others in front of the mountain, they were more likely to perceive climbing the mountain less challenging.

When the language center is shut down the survivor is less likely to speak and living in secrecy is painful and damaging to the survivor, he warned.

* Eliyahu Federman currently serves as Vice President to an e-Commerce Conglomerate. He studied at the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Learning and graduated from City University of New York School of Law where he served as an Executive Editor of the law review.