#MeToo

Monica Lewinsky at BI

Monica Lewinsky may have been the first person in history to experience international cyberbullying. Lewinsky was an intern in the White House during President Bill Clinton’s administration and her relationship with the U.S. president led to worldwide notoriety – contributing to the impeachment of the chief executive.

Lewinsky’s experiences took place before the dawn of social media, but her experience of being publicly judged and condemned was exacerbated by the then-new technology of the internet. Today, with almost every young person now on some form of social media platform, the potential for victimization or harassment exists everywhere.

The lessons of how decisions in early life can have long-lasting impacts – as well as considering how the #MeToo movement might invite a reconsideration of Lewinsky’s role in those events – are among the reasons Congregation Beth Israel will welcome Lewinsky to Vancouver for an evening that includes Selichot services Sept. 9.

“We were trying to think about someone who would be appropriate for Selichot, which is really the kickoff to the High Holiday season,” said Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld. “We wanted someone who would be addressing key High Holiday concepts, such as personal renewal, dealing with personal choices made throughout one’s life, but especially at a young age, the effect of those choices on one’s life. Also, very à propos to today, someone who is still dealing with body image and life image, dealing with online harassment and dealing especially, again in the modern period, with gender power-related issues.”

photo - Monica Lewinsky will touch upon several topics when she speaks at Beth Israel on Sept. 9 — Monica Lewinsky will touch upon several topics when she speaks at Beth Israel on Sept. 9. (photo from chartwellspeakers.com)

Lewinsky has been speaking on these topics for several years. And this will not be her first time speaking about them to Vancouver audiences, as she did a TED Talk here in 2015, where she told the audience she was subjected to “global humiliation” by “mobs of virtual stone throwers.”

“In 1998, I lost my reputation and my dignity. I lost almost everything,” she said at the time. “I almost lost my life.”

Lewinsky’s presentation here is presented by RBC Global Assets Management PH&N Institutional in addition to Beth Israel, King David High School and Hillel.

Beth Israel invited King David and Hillel to participate because of the relevance to younger audiences of the issue of cyberbullying and how decisions and actions at a young age can change one’s life, said the rabbi. He noted that some younger people might not know of Lewinsky’s experience, while people his age recall it vividly.

Infeld dismissed the idea that Lewinsky’s visit might be controversial.

“Our goal is not to deal with the political issues,” he said. “Our goal is to deal with the personal growth and harassment and mental health issues. Obviously, everyone has their own view of the political issues involved, but the intention here is really not to deal with Democrats versus Republicans or anything like that but really to deal with how one’s experiences as a 20-something-year-old, and the decisions that a person makes at that point, can affect one’s life…. She speaks openly about suicide ideation at one point and how did she overcome that, how is she alive today, to be able to speak, and how does this affect our young people today, who are also making challenging decisions that affect their lives potentially forever, like we all did.”

Infeld also wonders how Lewinsky would have been portrayed, and how different the perceptions might have been, had the events taken place today, when the #MeToo movement and other social changes have given us a different perspective on workplace and gender power dynamics.

“Had this played out in the 2020s and not in the 1990s, what would the storyline look like?” he asked. “I think that may have changed in a very significant way – what the gender and power dynamic looks like in terms of how people would perceive who has responsibility for what took place.”

Tickets to the event were made available first to Beth Israel members, King David families and Hillel students. Tickets were opened to general audiences on Aug. 15. The 8:30 p.m. fireside chat between Infeld and Lewinsky is free and will be followed by musical Selichot services, led by Debby Fenson and Harley Rothstein. People who donate or pledge $90 or more to Beth Israel’s High Holidays campaign are invited to a 7 p.m. seudah shlishit dinner with Lewinsky. Selichot services will be livestreamed but Lewinsky’s presentation will not be. Information and tickets are available at bethisraelvan.ca.

You take care now, y’hear?

I just realized that, lately, I had unconsciously changed the way I say goodbye, particularly when I am speaking with women. As a younger person, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to say “Take care!” when parting with people. What’s more? It’s happening even when I have casual interactions. I started thinking about where my new-to-me phrase comes from and where I’d heard it before.

I was out walking my dogs when one of them (the young, spry Setter mix) kicked me in the shin. I looked down, in pain, when I saw that she, too, was surprised. She’d slipped on the slick sidewalk and certainly hadn’t meant to hurt me. A man at the bus stop remarked how icy it was, and I agreed. I said, “Take care!”

Later, my household was in bed when we heard an ominous thump outside. My husband made a joke, we laughed and went to sleep. In the morning, I saw a thoroughly smashed car, its front end bashed in. It faced the wrong way on a busy street near our home. Across the intersection, there was a truck, also facing the wrong direction, somehow wedged into someone’s yard. It was slippery, indeed.

Often the habit of suggesting people take care is aligned with another statement though, something like, “Things are more dangerous these days.” However, our Torah readings from this time of year, in Genesis, remind us that things have always been dicey out there, particularly for women and for those in positions of less power in society.

For instance, when the three strangers tell Abraham that Sarah will have Isaac, she laughs (Genesis 18:12-15). However, this is quickly followed by Abraham’s question about why she laughed and she says, “I didn’t laugh.” Why? “Because she was frightened.” Why did she lie? Well, she was an old woman. Strangers told her something ridiculous and then she was asked to take it seriously. She was afraid. Sarah wouldn’t be the first or last woman to feel threatened and unsafe. If something like this situation happened today, I wouldn’t leave until I’d said, “Take care.”

Not much further along in Genesis, Abraham bargains with G-d, asking how many people in Sodom have to be righteous for G-d to save the city. Abraham has some power here. He feels emboldened to speak out, but he also gets to stay home rather than go to Sodom to try and fix things. Instead, two angels go to Sodom.

Lot takes the angels in as his guests, but when a crowd gathers to do the visitors harm, Lot suggests an unsettling exchange. He says that, rather than let the crowd “be intimate with them,” he’ll send out his two young daughters instead. He will sacrifice his daughters to be violated by the crowd (Genesis 19:8) rather than let his male guests be endangered.

Reading Genesis, I am reminded by how these dangerous situations, and particularly ones that threaten women, are not at all new. These are issues of power, control and sexuality. In a modern political comparison: we act as though the MMIWG (missing and murdered indigenous women and girls) report and its findings are new or different. In fact, violence against women, and specifically minority women in vulnerable situations, is a bad news story played on repeat. These threats are close to home, and they remain frightening.

When I hear myself telling a friend – a single mom whose father just died – to take care, I realize who I am echoing in my head. I hear older African-American women in my Virginia neighbourhood saying goodbye to me: “You take care now, y’hear?” I hear my mom sighing as she hung up the phone (it was avocado green, with a long cord so she could cook while talking) at home when I was younger. She said goodbye with a worried expression that her friend couldn’t see, saying “Bye! Take care.”

This is the closing comment of women, all over, who know that the world can be dangerous. We’re sending out our concern to those we love. We’re acknowledging that, sometimes, we must depend solely on ourselves, because it doesn’t look like anyone (including G-d) is stepping up to keep us safe.

Sometimes, Bereishit (Genesis) offers stories to dig into. I enjoy their meaty narrative. I love interpreting what it all means. Other sections cause me to sigh just as my mom did. In a world where women still don’t have any assurance of safety from war, crowds and violence, and where those who have less power are at the mercy of the powerful, it’s hard not to feel sadness. How little things change.

This also is a continuing opportunity for social justice. We can fight for a better place for everyone. We can seek out and care for those around us, rather than choosing to discriminate or discard lives, as Lot would have done to his daughters. In the meanwhile, I’m often slipping down the icy street, worrying and wondering over how I can spread a sukkat shalom (a shelter of peace) over those I love and care for. So, I’ll say what many wise women have said before me. You take care now, y’hear?

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Safe, healthy and respectful

Campers at Pennsylvania’s Camp Havaya. (photo from Camp Havaya)

In Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers), Ben Zoma says, “Who is honourable? One who honours others.” The Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Shmira Initiative “aims to make camps safe, healthy and respectful model communities. Shmira, in Hebrew and in the vernacular of Jewish summer camp, means guard duty, embodying the social and individual responsibility every community member has to ensure a safe environment.”

For some camps, the initiative provides practical training that has been needed for some time. But, at Camp Havaya in Pennsylvania, camp director Sheira Director-Nowack told the Independent that they have been operating on the initiative’s principles for many years.

“We have people who go by ‘he,’ by ‘she’ and by ‘they,’ as rabbis, teachers, students, educators, campers and staff,” said Director-Nowack of the camp, which is part of the Reconstructionist movement. “So, for us, the sexual harassment piece is something we’ve always discussed, have always had a policy for. I used to work at a camp that did not have that defined as clearly and they had some real challenges. We don’t have some of those challenges here, because it’s very up front and very clear – how you treat all people, not just insofar as gender, but in all areas of inclusion.”

At Camp Havaya, respect is constantly discussed.

“The name of our camp mascot is Howie Bee,” said Director-Nowack. “We talk about ‘how we be,’ using that as a fairly common statement to talk about how we should treat each other with respect, kindness … better than you’d want to treat yourself, you’d want to treat the other person … and, not just as a Jewish phenomena, but as a human phenomena.”

While Director-Nowack acknowledged that, every so often, they run into power conflicts in a relationship, they try to ensure it never gets near the point of harassment.

At Camp Havaya, she said, flirtation is discouraged. For example, there are strict rules as to what clothing is acceptable. Everyone must wear shirts at all times and clothing should be loose fitting. They also have no boys against girls competitions. Instead, all sports are open to everyone and, while everyone swims together, there are rules about appropriate swimwear.

Language and attitude is another area that is closely monitored at the camp. “We don’t use the word ‘broad’ or ‘chick,’ we don’t use a lot of derogatory terms,” said Director-Nowack. “We don’t make jokes at other people’s expense.

“We want everyone to treat each other how they would treat their own family or themselves…. There’s not a constant need for romance or underlying things that go into that modern love thought and, because of that, we don’t see certain behaviours that other places might see.”

The concepts of the #MeToo movement are discussed at camp, as are other relevant topics, like Black Lives Matter and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Our constituency is made up of people who are interested in these things … also, things like respect for people with special needs, inclusivity, race, culture and minorities,” said Director-Nowack. “We don’t talk about these things because they’re hot topics. We were talking about them before they were considered cool to talk about.

“We also give the credit to younger people, because it is them who are changing the verbiage, changing ideas. They are bringing them to us and we are bringing them to camp, because, if camp is a microcosm of society, then we want to be part of that.”

If and when the topic of sex comes up, Director-Nowack said she teaches her staff to turn the conversation back to the camper and ask why he or she is wondering about it.

Camp Havaya has a no-sex policy. If inappropriate behaviour is observed, Director-Nowack said, ‘We don’t punish people for behaviour, but I may or may not ask them if camp is the appropriate place for it. I don’t feel like there’s any place at camp where you could be sexual appropriately, and that’s what we talk about.

“We don’t hook up in the middle of the woods – that’s just not what we do. And, we really don’t have a lot of that. I don’t think I’d kick someone out of camp just because they kissed someone. But, I’d say something like, ‘I just walked passed you kissing … not what I want to see, not OK, not cool.’ If it got further than that, it would depend on the kid, the parent, the discussion and the situation. We’re dealing with human beings and we have an environment that’s not constant.”

Still, staff members do talk with campers about consent, in an effort to ensure all of them are comfortable in their own space at all times.

“Our goal is to create young leaders in the Jewish community who are thoughtful and intelligent, and who are, therefore, going to go out and lead a Jewish life and know themselves,” said Director-Nowack. “We love that some people find their love and their relationships at camp. But, I also love that people find their independence at camp … or that they want to lead a more productive Jewish life without a partner…. We want our kids and staff to leave camp as people who are going to make decisions guided by some basic values.”

For more information on the Shmira Initiative, visit jewishcamp.org/shmirainitiative.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

A personal perspective

April Ford (photo by Antonella Fratino)

In the fifth and final articles of a series on sexual harassment and violence, the Jewish Independent speaks with Montreal writer April Ford.

As the late Maya Angelou wrote in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Montreal-born fiction writer and essayist April Ford, who has been working as associate publisher for Southern Fried Karma, a literary press in Atlanta, Ga., since December 2017, knows this all too well.

“I’m honoured to stand alongside any woman who’s been mistreated, whether or not there’s a hashtag appended to her experience,” said Ford, a bold, heart-on-her-sleeve survivor of abuse. “The #MeToo movement, like any grassroots quest for equality, is one of unleashed compassion, controversy and confrontation … and, right now, it’s a mess. Sometimes, it seems more interested in the public shaming du jour of a celebrity sexual predator than in collective healing, and that frustrates me.”

Ford said she is not a believer in public shaming. “Black Mirror brilliantly depicts this nastiness in White Bear, season 2, episode 2,” she said.

“I’m even skeptical about how much the #MeToo movement can help women who’ve been abused, but who don’t have Twitter accounts, blogs or access to other popular venues for the dissemination of dark secrets to the masses … in exchange for emoticons and the chance to go viral,” she added.

In terms of some of the stories that have come out of the movement and how they have affected her, Ford said, “The story I’ve followed most closely is that of Concordia University in Montreal, where I completed the undergraduate creative writing program in 2007. Throughout the course of my degree, I spent a lot of time on campus as an aspiring but uncertain writer, and I sought mentorship from a handful of professors. I was consistently treated very, very well – there were no strings, pressures or consequences attached to the help and encouragement I received. That said, thanks to rumours, I knew to stay away from certain individuals within that concentrated world.

“Also, I started the program when I was 23 and, I think, being a few years older than the typical undergraduate student buffered me against harassment. Or maybe the negative experiences in my life outside of the program had trained me how to get through a situation as cleanly as possible, without giving anything away that wasn’t part of the experience I had signed on for, or having it taken from me without my consent.”

Regarding some of the high-profile people who have been outed as abusers via the #MeToo movement, Ford said, “I certainly have an opinion about how to cope with the abusive actions of people, whether family members, friends, mentors, celebrities or demi-gods. First, you have to be clear on your definition of abuse … and consistent. If you’re going to accuse one person of abusing you, then you can’t switch to a sliding scale when some actor or comedian you love is proven guilty of the same offence. And, no, I don’t believe you can separate the teacher, leader or artist from the abuser. That’s like saying you can separate all the white fur from the cream fur in a cat the colour of sand. It’s ridiculous.”

Ford was adopted as a child and only discovered after marrying a Jewish man (they have since divorced) – that her birth family may have Jewish roots.

When she was 15 years old, her adoptive parents, who had been fighting for years, decided to call it quits. Her mother left their home. Not long after, Ford lost her virginity to Bruce, a 34-year-old man. Up until then, she said, she “had hardly kissed a boy.”

Bruce instructed her to start taking birth control, “which I did,” said Ford, “as soon as I found a clinic that would dispense the pill to me for free and without questions like, ‘Where are your parents?’

“While my parents were dealing with the failure of their marriage, I was dealing with the euphoria and confusion that come with being a 15-year-old girl with no adult in her life to anchor her to a safe place. My mother, in trying to move forward from the damage my father’s abuse had caused her, was unable to be a mother to me. My father, in trying to hold his world together with rage, essentially fast-tracked me into the hands of a man who … [abused] me. I did my best to keep quiet – to hide the fact that this man I had rebelliously told everyone that I loved more than life itself was raping me every weekend.

“A lot of people in my life at the time could sense there was more to the story,” she said. “But, instead of getting involved or simply buying me a hot chocolate and asking how I was doing, they stopped being my friends.”

At that time, the mothers of Ford’s former friends insulted her with terms like “slut” and “whore” and said she had no business being anywhere near their daughters, sons and husbands. Ford went from being a decent student at a private Catholic high school for girls, a horse-lover and aspiring Olympic rider, to being what she referred to as “someone to be ashamed of, an afterthought.”

Ford can still vividly recall the whispers that, to her ears, were like screams of “all-knowing” grownups predicting that she was – at that young age – already done for; that she would end up pregnant, hooked on drugs and collecting welfare.

“None of that happened,” said Ford. “Not even close. Over the years, I’ve occasionally reconnected with people from that period. And, after they express exaggerated delight to see how well I’ve done for myself, they’d defensively stammer things like, ‘You seemed so mature and into your own thing … we just figured that’s how it was…. You said you were happy. Anyway, look at you now. Everything happens for a reason, right?’ No, it doesn’t.

“I’m sure some survivors can relate to my next statement: Bruce didn’t abuse me all the time. Not every time we had sex was rape, and there were times when he tried to initiate and I refused, and my wish was granted.” But there were several instances, as well as other types of abuse, that are too graphic to describe here.

Ford finds the whole concept of “moving on” troubling.

“It’s not a tidy process and it takes time,” said Ford. “It takes a lifetime. For me, moving on involved a lot of self-injurious behaviour in my late teens through to my 20s, and a lot of self-hate that I eventually learned to disguise as wit.

“My ‘disguise’ actually helped me push forward, to appear exponentially more confident than I was, so that I could create opportunities for myself. I’ve found there’s an expectation of real-life survivors of abuse to tell our tales demurely, to dab our eyes and conclude with, ‘But that was then, and I am stronger for it.’”

One message Ford has for other survivors is to not assume that people, including family and friends, will protect the deeply personal stories and truths you tell them. She advised that survivors tell their stories to the authorities and to people in positions to protect them, physically and legally. Most importantly, Ford stressed that survivors take charge of their emotional safety.

“In the years immediately following my break up with Bruce, I felt constantly in need of confessing my unworthiness to anyone who didn’t know the story, from new acquaintances to college professors to bartenders,” said Ford. “Thankfully, there haven’t been many cases where someone I’d confided in judged me unfairly. Mostly, people are compassionate and kind. But then, just last year, a pair of colleagues at the university where I had taught for eight years ‘profiled’ me, let’s call it … because they disagreed with a choice I’d made in my private life. They accused me of victimhood, based on what I’d shared with them in our friendships. We are no longer friends.”

As a self-described atheist, when in need of support, Ford prefers systems she can interact with directly, such as “proper nutrition, regular exercise and sleep hours, close friends and cuddly animals, work and pastimes that light joyful fires in her belly, and the occasional double shot of rum with a splash of Coke on the side. These things I can trust to always be available to me, and I am free to adjust and readjust their proportions to fit my always in-flux needs.

“What has not worked for me, in terms of healing, is writing about my experiences for the sole purpose of healing. I am a fiction writer to the bone. Sure, I graft details from my life onto the stories I write. But, actually, I use fiction to explore other people’s nightmares, so that I can take a break from my own. I need one kind of noise in my head to cancel out the survivor noise, if that makes sense.”

While Ford hopes that sharing her story here will do some good in the world, she would rather not impose her story on anyone. Further, she feels strongly that no one who has been abused is obligated to become a spokesperson for others.

“Sometimes,” she said, “the abuse a person experiences is so extreme that she needs the rest of her life just to learn how to step outside of her house without fear.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

#MeToo and education

Lu Winters, academic and student wellness counselor at King David High School. (photo from Lu Winters)

In the fourth of a series of articles on sexual harassment and violence in the Jewish community, the Jewish Independent speaks with Lu Winters of King David High School, Elana Stein Hain of the Shalom Hartman Institute and Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Sholom.

The first step in reducing bullying and other abuse in schools is to work with the students, said Lu Winters, academic and student wellness counselor at King David High School.

“I build connections with students in class,” she told the Independent. “And, with various groups in the school, I sometimes take them on trips. After the connection has been built, then the helping relationship can happen. It can happen one-on-one, in groups, in gender groups and through workshops.

“At King David, I’ve created a wellness program. Each grade receives a workshop, or two or three, depending on what’s going on during the year, on specific topics that I think are age-appropriate. I wish I could do every workshop for every single grade, but then the academic part of school would fall to the wayside.

“We run workshops on topics like LGBTQ awareness; healthy relationships with your body; self-esteem; stress and anxiety; drugs and alcohol; choices and values; and sexual health.”

Since the start of the #MeToo movement, Winters has seen some momentum. People have a lot to say about the movement, she said. “We haven’t had a specific workshop about it this year, but it’s on my radar for next year. During our sexual health education classes, we do address sexual harassment and consent, including talking about the roles of everyone involved, people’s faith, and making appropriate decisions for themselves at the right time … what to do if, G-d forbid, anything happens: who to talk to, what kind of support you can get.”

photo - Elana Stein Hain, scholar resident and director of faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute — Elana Stein Hain, scholar resident and director of faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute. *(photo from Elana Stein Hain)*

In the greater Jewish educational sphere, the Shalom Hartman Institute has produced a series of videos about related topics and examines how scripture has educated Jews on the subject over the years. Elana Stein Hain, scholar resident and director of faculty, has been leading the project.

“What we do is essentially develop curriculum around challenges facing the Jewish people,” Stein Hain told the Independent. “And I wouldn’t even say it’s about developing curriculum as much as developing conceptual frameworks for thinking about issues that arise. We’re an educational think tank. We ask ourselves what issues are now facing the Jewish people and consider how to develop educational material that deepens how we think about these issues. Then, we speak with change agents in the Jewish community about some ways of thinking.”

Stein Hain and her team began by looking for Torah teachings that address the topic of harassment directly. They came up with a three-part video series, which launched with a presentation that addressed the question of how, as a 21st-century teacher, you can educate people with our most sacred text and have the value proposition of our most sacred text being very important and continuing to give us the wisdom we seek, said Stein Hain. “And, also, we address the absence or relative absence of women’s voices and women as an audience.”

The next video talk was by Dr. Paul Nahme, a member of the institute’s Created Equal Team. He speaks on how definitions of manhood are dependent on cultural context.

“There’s this ‘boys will be boys’ kind of assumption and he says that, actually, there are places in Jewish tradition where that assumption had been challenged,” explained Stein Hain. “Young men were being trained to not be bravado macho, arrogant and assertive – to instead be trained to think about what it means to have doubts, to need someone else’s help. That was in contrast to what masculinity was understood to be.”

The last talk in the series was done by another member of the team, Dr. Arielle Levites, who discusses the portrayal of women in some Jewish traditional texts.

“It’s a deep folk story about women who try to move beyond their station or to move beyond the assumptions of them being portrayed as monsters,” said Stein Hain. “And she relates that to the … women who come forward with claims of sexual harassment or sexual violence who become seen as the offending party, getting questioned and vilified in certain ways.”

All of the videos can be accessed at hartman.org.il.

“The idea is really to get to the root of education,” said Stein Hain. “We are glad that people are going to do trainings on sexual harassment, on mandated reporting and on how to respond in the moment. We’d like to get to the root thought process of a culture that has come to this. And we want to learn how we can educate better, so we can have an adaptive change in the way people think, talk and act. Then, society and the Jewish community in particular can be built upon a different foundation.”

The educational realm within synagogues has also felt reverberations of the #MeToo movement, according to Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Sholom.

photo - Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Sholom — Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Sholom. *(photo from Carey Brown)*

“I have seen an incredible amount of conversation among rabbis about this issue,” said Brown. “Some have been from within female rabbinic circles of women … some confronting it … things that people had kept within themselves for years or decades … and, now, gaining the courage to talk about it – everything from struggles to trying to understand the situation insofar as its professional implications for female rabbis … major discussions are being had on the topic at our annual conferences.

“Within the congregation, I haven’t had any individuals come to talk to me about personal experience,” she said. “But I have had a sense that women are feeling more free to bring up topics having to do with abuse, with safety, within the congregation, [at the] board level or [from a] staff perspective.”

A couple of months ago, the synagogue’s Men’s Club had a program on the #MeToo movement and sexual harassment in the workplace, including panel discussion on the topic in which Brown participated.

“I was really glad they took the initiative to have this program,” said Brown. “This didn’t come from the rabbis; it came from their leadership wanting to have an opportunity to talk about it. The conversation was really good and those who attended were very engaged and didn’t want to leave.”

Brown spoke about the Jewish perspective, discussing its tradition of values and ideas around sexual harassment, as well as her own personal experience with harassment.

“We talked a lot about consent,” said the rabbi. “A few different pieces of Talmud were discussed. We looked at this one that was about what happens if a man – one who counts money for a woman from his hand to her hand in order to look upon her – even if he has accumulated knowledge of Torah and good deeds like Moses, he will not be absolved from punishment.

“We talked about how, if someone even has a good reputation in the community, is known for their knowledge, good deeds and business … if they are abusive or using their power in a way that puts someone else in a position in which they are abused and powerless … our tradition says that, no, that is not OK.”

Abuse can be as simple as the way one person looks at another – if there is a misuse of power or position to objectify someone, Jewish tradition says that is not acceptable, stressed Brown.

“We talked about how we need to stand up when someone is being objectified, abused or put into a difficult situation,” she said. “That is part of our Jewish imperative – not to look away. It is part of what the Torah teaches us: that we can’t be indifferent and we must act.”

Over the years, Brown has had inappropriate comments directed at her. She said, “I’ve received comments like, ‘You don’t look like a rabbi’ or ‘If my rabbi looked like you, I’d have gone to shul a lot more when I was younger,’ or comments on my clothing and hair, and such.

“I mentioned at the event with the Men’s Club that my experience, both in Vancouver at Temple Sholom and in Boston, has been that the longer that I am the rabbi of a community, the stronger the relationships. And, I feel some of those things begin to fade away … within the regular, active population of the synagogue.

“It’s often when I’m in a new environment with people who don’t know me – at a shivah minyan, a wedding or something like that – my antennae go up. I’m very aware that it’s very likely I’ll get comments that are really inappropriate or that I have to psyche myself up a little bit to deal with.

“If I’m at a shivah minyan, I’m there to comfort the bereaved. I’m generally not going to confront in that situation,” she said. “I will take it with a grain of salt and maybe grumble about it to a friend. But, sometimes I’ll say, ‘That’s not appropriate.’ Sometimes, I’ll hear things like, ‘I’ve never kissed a rabbi before.’ And, I’ll say, ‘Well, we don’t need to kiss.’ I’ll push back a little bit to establish some boundaries.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

#MeToo waves reverberate

Rabbi Mark Dratch (photo from Mark Dratch)

In the first of a series of articles on sexual harassment and violence in the Jewish community, the Jewish Independent speaks with Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Council of America and founder of JSafe, the Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse Free Environment, about child abuse.

The “Me Too” movement was started more than 10 years ago to help survivors of sexual violence. Propelled by the hashtag #MeToo, the long-overdue public discussion about sexual harassment and violence against women has revealed that most women have at one point or other in their lives – and usually on more than one occasion – been belittled or threatened, harassed and/or assaulted.

It also has become clear that much abuse occurs – or first occurs – in childhood, and that such abuse is often perpetrated by individuals considered trustworthy, such as a family member, a family friend or someone in an authoritative role, like a teacher, coach or spiritual leader.

Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and founder of JSafe, the Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse Free Environment, first became acquainted with the issue when he was working as a pulpit rabbi.

“It was probably about 30 years ago,” he told the Independent. “When I was a young rabbi, I became aware of instances of child abuse in the Jewish community and I was very displeased – by the way the situations were being handled, by the way victims were being treated, by the way communities were in a state of denial … and that many of our institutions were not responding appropriately to the allegations. Victims were becoming re-victimized and we weren’t protecting the safety of victims in our community.”

In a paper on child abuse within the Orthodox community, Dratch argued that the then-status quo way of handling these cases was, in fact, based on misinterpretations of the spirit and letter of Jewish law. He addressed, for example, the notion that one must not speak ill of others and their actions, using the Torah to explain that, in instances of child abuse, this sanction does not apply. Taking it a step further, he showed that, in situations such as child abuse, people have an obligation to speak up. His paper was distributed to members of the RCA, and also to many Jewish child and family services agencies in the United States.

“People objected to calling the child protective agencies or civil authorities because of what was perceived to be a religious ban against reporting a fellow Jew to the civil authorities,” said Dratch. “So, I advocated very strongly and proved that it’s not the case – that there’s an obligation to call and work hard to share that information, and to establish community policies that advocate the importance of reporting. There is a whole host of other Jewish values that are good and appropriate but, when they’re misapplied, they can be very harmful.

“I started to get more and more involved in the issue and became aware of more issues. I became involved in organizations in the Jewish community, the general community and the interfaith community that dealt with issues of child abuse.

“This was a period of education for me in terms of the nature of the incidents, but also various responses, and I have been involved ever since,” he said. “Also, for a number of years, I’ve been involved in trying to educate the community and address the objections people have … trying to advocate for policy and to change attitudes. Over the 30 years or so, we see that the community is in a very different place than it was then.”

Thanks to movements like #MeToo, many survivors have become less fearful of speaking out. “Many of them had felt that, somehow, the stereotype that this doesn’t happen in the Jewish community further alienated them and made it difficult for them to acknowledge the abuse,” said Dratch.

Although he admitted we still have a long way to go, Dratch said he feels that the topic is now more common in community discussions. He also said there are now more supports in place for survivors to come forward and get the help they need from the community. As well, more institutions are developing policies of prevention and response in regards to child abuse.

“I think we are now way beyond the situation where there was denial that this was happening,” said Dratch. “We’re way beyond a situation where the community denies that it has any responsibility in prevention and such.”

According to Dratch, the RCA has been a leader in this field, giving rabbis the tools to respond appropriately if complaints of child abuse come up.

“We serve as a resource to our rabbis looking for guidance on how to handle specific situations that may arise in their communities,” said Dratch. “And, we’ve also evolved our mechanisms for holding our rabbis accountable if there are complaints against them for boundary violations or abuse.”

With respect to the Orthodox community, Dratch has found that the number of females victimized is generally lower than that of males, while numbers in the general community indicate that females are more likely targets of child abuse than males. He attributes the difference as likely being due to the increased segregation of the sexes in Orthodox communities.

“The larger culture, in the Jewish and Orthodox community, has enabled and empowered people to come forward and share their complaints and seek justice,” said Dratch. “We will continue to look for ways to educate our rabbis and our communities, and to make our communities and institutions safer.”

While Dratch deals mostly with the Orthodox community, in previous years, he has been involved with the entire spectrum of the Jewish community. In his view, the phenomenon of abuse does not discriminate between observant and non-observant.

“It doesn’t discriminate at all,” he said. “And we have an obligation, as individuals and as a community, to be there for every member of our larger community. Many people who are involved in these things think that we are no different than the general community. It’s really hard to know what our numbers are. My position is that even one is too many. And we certainly have many more than one victim.”

According to Dratch, in the general community – Jewish and non-Jewish together – one out of seven boys and one out of three or four girls become victims of child abuse.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

A need for ethical guidelines

This time of year, we read Torah portions in the Book of Leviticus. It’s full of information about how to do sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s a good reminder – things have changed in the Jewish world, haven’t they? Perhaps we don’t need details for how to do a sin offering, an offering of well-being or for first fruits? Then again, maybe we do.

Huh? No, I don’t mean we need to learn to kill animals to sacrifice them. However, the rituals described in Leviticus have become guidelines for other things we do. For instance, it’s common to make a donation to a synagogue in honour of someone, or to express gratitude for a return to good health, a success at work or a family celebration. There are modern interpretations for some of these rituals, including the need to do something to repair things when feeling guilt or after committing a sin.

Parts of Leviticus offer us good metaphors … reminders that we can apply to other things in Jewish life.

I receive an email newsletter from the Jewish news organization JTA. One of the articles that popped up was about fundraising: “Women in Jewish fundraising say harassment is pervasive.” I followed the link. It turns out that fundraisers for Jewish organizations and in the nonprofit world are mostly women.

Donors? You guessed it, are predominantly men. Just like in other parts of the #MeToo professional world, many Jewish fundraisers have tolerated widespread harassment in order to do their jobs. If you don’t bring in the money, it’s hard to keep your fundraising job. These fundraisers have told hair-raising tales of stalking, requests for dates or sexual favours and dangling professional opportunities “if only” the woman professional would “cooperate.”

Most of us don’t want to imagine that one’s body has to be part of a professional encounter in the fundraising arena, unless perhaps your wife, daughter, mother or sister is a sex worker (and Jewish tradition has plenty of those. Read the Bible for more on that). Imagine if your daughter, recently graduated from university, went to lunch for her job at a Jewish nonprofit. A grey-haired man sat next to her, put his chequebook down, stuck his hand up her thigh under the table, and let her know that there would be more money to come if she just went out with him.

Disgusting? Yes. These days, there are laws that say both men and women deserve the same fair pay for their work and freedom from harassment on the job.

Oh, come on, some say – this doesn’t happen in the Jewish world. Well, it does. Jews can be alcoholics, drug addicts, adulterers, criminals and more. We are people. People aren’t perfect. We commit sin, and feel guilty. (Remember those Temple sacrifices?)

The sad part is that, in many ways, we groom children to be cooperative, to respect adults in their community, to listen and obey us even if they don’t know everyone’s name. This grooming, particularly for girls, starts young. This sometimes results in bad things happening. Young women tolerate a lot before they realize something bad happened and they should complain.

As someone who used to teach full-time (and a mom), I see things that make me scared in this regard. Imagine free-range preschoolers and elementary schoolers, left to roam in a Jewish community building without adequate parental supervision. Adults offer them candy or encourage them to find their parents, but no one leads them directly to the children’s activity or to their parents. Never mind the potential for accidents or getting into mischief … worse happens.

This situation is ripe for a predator to step in with candy and lure a child away. This is how horrible, life-altering, illegal things happen to children. When I mentioned this concern aloud, the response was: “Oh, kids roam around. It’s always been this way.” Really? Thank goodness that, in Jewish tradition, we evolve and change. Even the most traditional among us don’t do sacrifices anymore. We no longer sweep childhood sexual abuse under the rug. We no longer think it is OK for women to earn less, or that they must tolerate sexual harassment on the job. We no longer think it is OK for male donors to expect they can get away with this, if only they write a big cheque.

The key to changing a culture that allows sexual predation is in Leviticus, too. The instructions for sacrifice are well laid out and clear to follow. There’s a set of steps and a ritual to each one. In the JTA article written by Debra Nussbaum Cohen, she outlines some of the new efforts to make organizational and structural change to these interactions between funders and donors. This includes laying out ethical guidelines when it comes to sexual harassment and abuse, specifically addressing the power imbalance between fundraisers, who solicit donations to keep their jobs, and funders, who hold the purse strings.

Judaism has plenty to offer when it comes to respecting someone’s body, modesty and personal space. If we know the rules to appropriate behaviour, we recognize that we can do a lot to make modern environments safer and more ethical. We also must be aware that harassing fundraisers (who happen to be women), paying our Jewish professionals (who are often women) inadequately, or failing to provide our children Jewish “safe” spaces are not acceptable ways to behave as Jews.

If Jewish tradition alone doesn’t matter to some? Many of these behaviours are also illegal. We may mourn the loss of the Temple and pray for its return. However, I vote to exchange Leviticus’s ritual steps for bloody sacrifice with those ethical behavioural guidelines for donations that emerged from the rabbinic age. We can ritualize good behaviour around tzedakah (charity) instead.

Joanne Seiff writes regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

A no-go zone for Jews?

Women and their allies across North America marched last Saturday in a massive show of feminist and progressive activism. It was the second annual such event, the first one coming the day after U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year.

At the Los Angeles Women’s March, actor Scarlett Johansson, who is Jewish, told the audience that she became part of the movement because she felt a rage in her on behalf of women who have been abused and because of things that have happened to her in the past.

“Suddenly, I was 19 again and I began to remember all the men who had taken advantage of the fact that I was a young woman who didn’t yet have the tools to say no, or understand the value of my own self-worth,” Johansson said.

Johansson’s experience is one of millions that have been shared in recent months since the advent of the #MeToo movement. But it was a message that was not heard by all.

Because Johansson was scheduled to speak at the event, Palestinian women’s groups boycotted it. One group accused Johansson of “unapologetic support of illegal settlements in the West Bank.”

The Palestinian groups’ complaint, ostensibly, is that Johansson was a spokesperson for SodaStream, which produces an at-home beverage carbonation system. The fact that SodaStream was based in Maale Adumim, a West Bank Jewish settlement, made it a target for BDS, the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel.

The Palestinian American Women’s Association declared: “While her position may not be reflective of all organizers at the Women’s March Los Angeles Foundation, PAWA cannot in good conscience partner itself with an organization that fails to genuinely and thoughtfully recognize when their speaker selection contradicts their message.”

In a free country like the United States, anyone is free to boycott anything. The Palestinian women’s groups were fully within their rights to stay home. But the idea that Johansson was not a legitimate voice to be heard at the rally because she does not condemn Jewish settlements in the West Bank is a bit of a stretch.

If Johansson’s association with SodaStream was the real reason the Palestinian groups stayed home, as they say it is, it presents an opportunity to reflect on a bit of recent history. In one of their few successful campaigns, BDS managed to force SodaStream to close its West Bank plant, causing unemployment for 500 Palestinians who had worked there. Some achievement.

However, something potentially more significant may be afoot, which has nothing to do with SodaStream or settlements at all.

The Palestinian movement is trying to co-opt the progressive and feminist movements in the name of a nationalist movement that gives no indication that it would, if successful, reflect anything like what North Americans would consider a progressive or woman-friendly independent country.

One of the things that progressive people have come to accept, with much thanks to #MeToo, is that intent sometimes matters less than impact. We have come to accept, for instance, that what a man might call “persistent flirtation” can be experienced by women as coercion, intimidation or worse.

Palestinian groups – and the progressive and feminist groups they infiltrate – should be conscious that what is intended as criticism of Israel, whether they like it or not, impacts on Jews. Of course, not all Jews are Zionists. Nonetheless, when you attack Israel, Jews feel it.

Consider from where we’ve come. A few short years ago, most “pro-Palestinian groups” insisted they didn’t oppose Israel’s existence, they were merely criticizing certain policies of the Israeli government. Now, it is extremely common for people to express outright antipathy to Zionism. Indeed, Zionism is a dirty word among many of the people who organized and participated in the marches last weekend. This is a far step from criticizing certain policies. To oppose Zionism is to oppose the existence of a Jewish state.

The Palestinian movement is trying to kick the Zionists (and that includes most North American Jews) out of the progressive and feminist movements. Is that OK with progressives? Is that OK with Jews?

If both sides don’t do something about it, Zionists and Jews are going to have a sworn enemy on the left and the left is going to be known as a no-go zone for Jews and Zionists. Who thinks that’s OK?