domestic violence

CHW empowers victims

COVID-19 isn’t the only global pandemic to worry about; the worldwide increase in domestic violence has been coined a “shadow pandemic” by the United Nations. Globally, an estimated one in three women lives with violence and fear. But the number of domestic violence complaints in Israel, for example, has increased by 800% since the beginning of COVID. True to its mission, Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW) is leading the way to empower women by stepping up emergency support and services at this critical time.

CHW strongly believes that every human being deserves the right to achieve their full potential, while living in safety and security. CHW appointed its first chief executive officer, Lisa Colt-Kotler, who is spearheading a transition and new direction for the 100-year-old organization, with a history of support for women and children in Israel and Canada. This summer, CHW is launching a quadruple matching 24-hour crowdfunding campaign and proceeds will help empower victims of domestic violence.

CHW’s summer campaign, S.O.S. – Starting Over Safely, has three priorities for projects in Israel: CHW Youth Villages, which provide a safe haven for at-risk adolescents and supports mental health through a variety of outlets; Essential Kits for Families, which provides the basic necessities needed to help each family start over safely after they leave an emergency shelter; and the Safety Net Program, which will empower women and their children by providing housing, financial help, social and personal support, employment support, and a network of other women in similar circumstances. Safety Net has nearly a 100% success rate of breaking the cycle of violence and preventing victims from re-entering a domestic abuse relationship.

Aug. 24-25, funds donated will be matched three more times by a loyal community of donors recognized as “Matching Heroes.” During the 24-hour campaign, which kicks off at noon in each centre across Canada, each gift donated on the website chwsos.ca will be quadrupled.

And, on Aug. 24, at 5 p.m. PST, CHW is hosting a free, star-studded, 90-minute virtual telethon experience during which viewers will learn more about how to help empower victims of domestic violence. To watch, just click on the link from the campaign website.

For more details, contact Irena Karshenbaum, CHW development officer for Western Canada, at [email protected] or 403-253-4612.

– Courtesy CHW

What does future hold?

Jewish community member mia amir is the dramaturg of Wypsa, which is at the Fringe Festival until Sept. 16.

While the plot of Wyspa may bring to mind William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the book was not a direct inspiration for this work, co-writer and director Julia Siedlanowska told the Independent.

The creation of the play, which opened at the Vancouver Fringe Festival Sept. 7, began with the reading and discussion of an original story written by Siedlanowska and Kanon Hewitt.

“Our team includes five collaborators between the ages of 11 and 16,” said Siedlanowska. “They have all been involved directly in the creation of this piece through world-building, research, writing text, improvisation, creating soundscapes, costumes and props. They are all also performing in the piece.”

Siedlanowska and Kanon’s story “tells the tale of a walled-in community that has sustained itself through oil extraction for centuries,” Siedlanowska explained. “When fires start raging within the walls, the mothers of the community make the decision to send their children away through the only opening to the outside world – an opening to the ocean.

“After days of drifting, they finally arrive on an island. Here, they must decide whether they will live by the rigid rules of their old society or create their own.

“We separated the experience into three worlds,” she continued. “The home world, the world of the boat and the world of the island. From there, we collectively decided the specific circumstances of each of these, including what rules apply in the home world and the island world. The youth created their own characters and decided on each of their relationships to each other. Text and movement were all generated by the collaborators, with myself and Kanon making decisions about the show structure with the help of our dramaturg mia amir. There are some improvisational aspects – much of the show takes place within an improvised structure with scenes changing depending on the audience.”

The end result came from research of instances in which children were removed from their homes during the Second World War, said Siedlanowska, “including Japan after the Tokyo bombings and the Kindertransport of Jewish children in Europe, as well as the Sixties Scoop in Canada.

“One piece of literature that I did directly mention in the initial phases of brainstorming was the story of King Matt the First, written by Polish-Jewish playwright Janusz Korczak. Korczak ran an orphanage in Second World War Poland. He was a pedagogue, writer and children’s rights activist. The orphanage was called Our House, and the children living there published their own newspaper and held their own court when conflicts arose among them. King Matt the First was about a child who becomes king, and what might happen if children were rulers.”

However, the idea of the story first arose, she said, “from questions around the rise in domestic violence in Alberta as a result of the economic downturn and job loss in the oil and gas industry. This violence is predominantly towards women.

“This then led to questions around how raising youth within rigid gender identities might enforce these patterns of violence. Instead of writing what we think youth might have to say about these themes, we decided to ask directly. In relation to climate change, we also wanted to ask the question, how do we – as an adult audience – react to dialogue around the climate crisis when those who will inherit the planet stand directly in front of us?”

Wyspa is being presented as part of Generation Hot, a mentorship initiative of the Only Animal and the Fringe Festival, which presents the work of seven writer-directors between the ages of 17 and 24. This year’s program is called Waterborne. “Each participant has found a personal response to a chosen site on Granville Island and the theme of water,” explains the press release. “Two programs of these short works will run in rep during the 2017 Vancouver Fringe Festival…. Wyspa is paired with Citlali: A Fantastic Tale About Water by a Mexican Poet by Brenda Muñoz.”

Wyspa runs Sept. 8, 10, 13-14 and 16, 8 p.m., at Ron Basford Park on Granville Island. For tickets ($12) and the full Fringe schedule, visit vancouverfringe.com.

Prairie study results in

Andrea Silverstone, coordinator of Shalom Bayit at Jewish Family Service Calgary. (photo from Andrea Silverstone)

A study of domestic violence in Jewish communities in the Prairie provinces was recently completed.

“The study has been a desire of mine probably since the day we started,” said Andrea Silverstone, Shalom Bayit coordinator at Jewish Family Service Calgary, “because a lot of what we know about domestic violence in the Jewish community is based on anecdotal information, suppositions, copying what is in the non-Jewish community or research from other jurisdictions outside our own.

“We were doing a good job of addressing the needs of the clients who walked in the door, some of the prevention programs we had in the schools and the community … [but] it wasn’t research-based in the sense of understanding the scope of the issue across the Jewish communities in the Prairie provinces.”

Silverstone would have loved to do a Canada-wide study, but her supporter, Resolve, which is a tri-party research body conducting community-based action, has a set research mandate of focusing exclusively on the Prairie provinces: Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta.

Over the years, Silverstone has done a lot of work with Resolve and has an extensive background in dealing with domestic violence in her capacity at Shalom Bayit, which addresses everything from bullying and harassment to child abuse, elder abuse and spousal abuse.

“There was a research study done in 2004 by Jewish Women International that was fairly comprehensive,” said Silverstone. “So, we reached out to them, asking to borrow the methodology of their study, which they allowed. We also thought it would be a good comparison.”

Silverstone and the Resolve team, led by Dr. Nicole Letourneau of the University of Calgary, then approached Jewish Child and Family Service in Winnipeg, Jewish Family Services in Edmonton and various Jewish community organizations in Saskatchewan, asking them to be involved.

Silverstone found that getting people to work on this topic was easy – both the academics and community groups – as domestic violence has touched most people in one form or other.

“Everyone wanted to better understand the scope and needs around domestic violence in the Jewish community,” said Silverstone. “I don’t think anyone needed to be convinced [that there was an issue worth studying]…. It was just a matter of figuring how to best do this, so we that we weren’t taxing already taxed resources.”

The study involved two parts in terms of gathering data. The first part had participants take 20 to 25 minutes to fill out a survey based on the JWI survey. About 280 people filled this out.

Once the surveys were collected, the researchers asked two questions: Was there anything surprising? And, what did they understand from it?

“Those were the two data question points that helped us build the results of the study,” explained Silverstone. “We knew we’d have data to compare to mainstream populations. In terms of rates of people reporting that they are survivors of domestic violence, it is about the same as the general population. Twenty percent of the people who answered our study said they were victims of domestic violence. And, in the general population, those numbers are anywhere from 25 to 40%.”

The other aspect, she added, is “of those who experience domestic violence, their experience of it, in terms of physical and financial toll, is about the same, except for in our reported rates in the study of domestic violence in the form of emotional abuse – that is higher than the general population. They report about half to 60% of the domestic violence they experience is verbal [in the general population] and, in our survey, it was 82%.”

Silverstone said this divergence may be because Jews are very verbal people. Another possibility is that people tend to perceive verbal abuse as a more acceptable kind of domestic violence – they refrain from physically hitting their partner, but they won’t stop themselves from yelling or name-calling. “This is probably an area we should be researching further,” said Silverstone.

For Silverstone, there were some surprises when it came to the survey results, such as the low number of people who would consult with their rabbi about their situation – only three percent of those surveyed.

“Something that struck me,” she added, “which was also a finding of the JWI study, is that the top three sources victims utilize in domestic violence situations are friends, family and private therapists. Friends and family are, by far, the highest. It made me realize that we need to be focused on teaching friends and family in the Jewish community how to recognize domestic violence, to respond appropriately and then to refer people.”

Currently, Silverstone is in the process of determining which kinds of programs should be implemented and what kind of awareness-raising campaigns the community should be taking on, based on the survey results.

The first step is to educate friends and family about how to be good supports, she said. “There is all sorts of other research out there about what are called ‘informal supports.’… If the informal supporter has a healthy response, the person is going to go get help. If they don’t, that person is going to shut down and not seek help again for a long time. I think it’s important that we get that straight.”

Silverstone feels strongly that there is a need to dig deeper and find out why people are not using rabbis. “Is this because we’re not doing a good enough job of helping rabbis be effective supporters? Are they not talking about the issue enough? Do people not feel safe? Because they are a great resource if we can tap into them.”

Another big issue that came to light through the survey is that of safe housing for victims and that victims are not finding shelters to be helpful. Silverstone wants to examine this further.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, contact the Jewish Family Service Agency at 604-257-5151, the bc211 help line at 211 if you live in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Squamish-Lillooet or Sunshine Coast, or VictimLinkBC at 1-800-563-0808.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Safe options for pet lovers

When it comes to cases of domestic violence, wanting to keep our pets has particularly dangerous implications; it can potentially put both children and adults at risk. (photo from commons.wikimedia.org)

Times are tough. Difficult financial circumstances and/or acts of violence force all kinds of people to seek shelter outside their homes. As if leaving one’s home in the wake of such challenges isn’t bad enough, sometimes this leave-taking involves the very painful question of what to do with the individual or family’s pet.

Many of us can well appreciate the desire to hold on to our animals. When it comes to cases of domestic violence, however, wanting to keep our pets has particularly dangerous implications; it can potentially put both children and adults at risk.

Dr. Frank Ascione provides this eye-opening statistic: “In 12 independent surveys, between 18 percent and 48 percent of battered women have delayed their decision to leave their batterer, or have returned to their batterer, out of fear for the welfare of their pets or livestock.” (Violence Against Women, 13(4), 2007)

Why are these pet owners willing to go to extremes to hold on to their animals? Genevieve Frederick of the U.S. organization Pets of the Homeless elaborates on her nonprofit’s website, “Their pets are nonjudgmental; provide comfort and an emotional bond of loyalty. In some cases, they provide the homeless with protection and keep them warm.”

In addition, Dr. Andrew Gardiner, who helps run free veterinary clinics at two homeless hostels in Edinburgh, Scotland, offers this interesting observation: “… many homeless people say that having a pet is what gives them hope….”

Critically, keeping the family dog or cat is vital to children’s continued emotional stability. In her groundbreaking paper for the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA), Allie Phillips states, “When a child has been abused or traumatized, it can be the nonjudgmental comfort from an animal that helps the child heal…. Children often love their pets like family members and, if a pet is threatened, harmed or killed, this can cause psychological trauma to the children.”

Moreover, Jewish law requires us to be pro-active in cases of domestic abuse as well in situations of cruelty to animals. In a 2007 article entitled “Few are guilty, but all are responsible: The obligations to help survivors of abuse,” Rabbi Mark Dratch (executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Council of America and founder of Jsafe) writes: “… the physical, emotional and spiritual dangers that result from perpetrators of abuse and violence … obligate each of us to protect potential victims from them.” Among the texts he uses to base his conclusions about Jewish responsibilities toward people in domestic violence situations are Leviticus 19:16 and Deuteronomy 22:2 and, in the case of cruelty to animals, Exodus 23:5 and Deuteronomy 22:4.

According to the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse: “Domestic abuse occurs in Jewish families at about the same rate as in the general community – about 15 percent – and the abuse takes place among all branches of Judaism and at all socioeconomic levels. Studies show that abuse occurs in every denomination of Judaism in equal percentages, and we see abuse in all communities including the unaffiliated.”

But the Jewish community in particular, and the community at large, have thus far established few shelters for pet-owning domestic violence victims. In 2014 (during two days of census taking), Vancouver had 1,820 individuals living in emergency or transitional facilities, 957 people living on the streets (homelesshub.ca/community-profiles/british-columbia/vancouver) and 88 children (under the age of 19) in the company of a parent. Of those people living in transition homes, 116 were women and children fleeing violence (vancouver.ca/files/cov/results-of-the-2014-metro-vancouver-homeless-count-july-31-2014.pdf).

Another complication once someone is able to transition back to a more stable living situation is access to affordable, pet-friendly rental accommodations. Vancouver has one of the lowest vacancy rates in Canada. Moreover, in British Columbia, there is no law permitting tenants to have a pet. In fact, the existing Residential Tenancy Act explicitly gives landlords the right to refuse pets, or to charge an extra deposit for accepting pets. Many renters have a hard time finding rental apartments and pet-owning residents have an even harder time locating suitable housing. People are often forced to choose between their pet and a roof over their head.

What then is available to these needy residents and their animals? The Salvation Army’s Centre for Hope in Abbottsford is currently working on becoming pet friendly. Shilo St. Cyr, program supervisor of Sheena’s Place, an Elizabeth Fry Society facility in Vancouver, reports: “We don’t accommodate women and children who have pets. We usually try to arrange for a dog sitter/shelter.”

Jodi Dunlop, Vancouver branch manager of British Columbia’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, reports: “Currently, our branches offer a two-week compassionate board for the animals. This gives the person leaving the violent situation a chance to find accommodation and not have to worry about the care and safety of their pet. In some cases, we have extended the care for the animal. It is dependent on each situation and also the animal’s welfare while in our care. There is no charge for this service. Our goal is to always reunite the animal with their owner.”

No doubt the animals are kept safe in foster care. But individuals and family members must temporarily deal with separation, both from their physical home and from the most cherished parts of that former home life.

Indeed, the flipside of this human attachment is such that dogs and cats of homeless people are also very attached to their owners. Gardiner points out: “The pet and the person spend so much time interacting with each other that the human/animal bond is incredibly strong. If these pets are taken from their owners, it is not uncommon for them to suffer separation anxiety or demonstrate other behavioral problems. In the worst case, a dog that is unable to adjust could end up being put down. That would be a terrible outcome.”

Nationwide, the number of Canadian domestic violence shelters offering pet facilities is still very small. While individual Vancouver cat and dog owners might find shelter for themselves and their pets at either 412 Women’s Emergency Shelter or St. Elizabeth’s-St. James Community Service Society, it appears the family member seeking temporary shelter in Vancouver would do best to contact either the BCSPCA branches in the Vancouver area or, as St. Cyr advises, contacting 211. Additionally, for more non-pet-related inquiries, the Women’s Safety and Outreach Program recently opened a weekday hotline between 5 p.m. and 1 a.m. – it can arrange transportation for women fleeing violence to housing (transition, shelter). As of this writing, the telephone number is 604-652-1010.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.