Newark—220 participants from 102 Orthodox Jewish organizations gathered two weeks ago for a groundbreaking conference that addressed some of the most sensitive topics affecting the Orthodox Jewish community: risk, trauma, and abuse. The milestone event was hosted by Amudim and included 25 private-practice clinicians as well as rabbis, educators, therapists, clinical directors, heads of major organizations, social workers, philanthropists, and many others who spent two days analyzing these rarely discussed problems and formulating a five-point strategy for tackling these complex issues head on.
Shedding light on sensitive topics that for years have been kept in the shadows is crucial, explained David Mandel, CEO of Ohel’s Children and Family Services. “It means that additional victims will come out and seek support,” said Mandel. “It means that they feel that they will be empathized with. It means that it will give them strength about not feeling that they were ruined or tainted and they can’t get a shidduch and it will strengthen other people to do this work.”
“This was the first ever conference of this type within the Orthodox Jewish community,” said Zvi Gluck, director of Amudim. “This was a collaborative effort by many people and many organizations and is just the beginning of what will be an all-out effort to effect crucial changes to benefit our precious children.”
The statistics for both abuse cases and drug overdoses in the Jewish community are staggering, with dozens of known cases reported since Rosh Hashana and over three dozen deaths of people under age 35 in the Jewish community in that same time period, underscoring the need for serious and immediate intervention.
The workshop-based event divided participants into four separate groups, each of which identified both short-term goals to help those who have been victimized, as well as possible impediments to those solutions, and devised a set of protocols that would allow them to effectively and practically achieve those objectives. All came up with a set of similar goals, which boiled down to five distinct strategies: centralizing information and access to resources; creating grass-roots efforts to change the status quo; developing evidence-based support services; engaging rabbanim, educators, and parents to promote child safety; and creating funding strategies. Numerous participants volunteered to begin taking leadership roles.
A key component of dramatic change was also put into play at the Amudim conference with the announcement of a $1 million fund to treat abuse victims, created by philanthropists Mendy Klein, Nancy Friedberg, and others. The new fund is an initiative of ASAP (www.ASAP.care) and provides therapy to Orthodox Jewish abuse victims who live in the tri-state area through qualifying non-profit organizations and is hopefully the first of many more programs dedicated to treating abuse in the Jewish community.
Participants were inspired by divrei Torah from Rabbi YY Jacobson, Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein, and Rabbi Elya Brudny, rosh yeshiva of the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn.
Dr. David Pelcovitz said, “The simple act of gathering a large number of people who deal with the issues of trauma, risk, and abuse for a conference of this nature was an empowering experience that has the potential to be a catalyst for positive change. It crystallized our thinking in terms of very specific goals.”
“I see an amazing movement in moving forward and empowering parents, rabbonim, and the community to protect our children,” added Ruchama Clapman, founder and executive director of MASK. “We waited so many years and we’ve seen so many cases over the years, not hundreds, but thousands, and we can say we are going to be able to, as a result of this conference, get so much help in so many different ways just by us getting together, networking, and coming up with special policies which will give support to parents and empower victims to be able to get help, get the therapy they need, and be able to then move on to lead healthy lives.”
To find out more about Amudim visit them online at www.amudim.org or contact them at 646-517-0222.
The conference was a unique way for leaders of the community to get together and brainstorm about responses and solutions to sexual abuse in the frum community,” said Teaneck resident Leah Respler of the ARCC Institute. “It was humbling to be surrounded by community, rabbinic, educational and mental health leaders, all with one focus: to minimize the negative impacts of this issue, change the status quo and create a brighter future for the Jewish people.
