letter from a friend of a survivor

This letter has not been printed yet. However, there is still hope that someone will publish it in the near future! Please keep the letters coming!

I have followed with interest the conversation about sexual abuse taking places in the pages of Jewish publications these past months. My interest would not have been as great had I not recently reconnected with a long-time friend.

After high school, my friend and I slowly parted ways. I couldn’t understand why she made so many self-sabotaging decisions, and she never explained. There was a lack of understanding between us that obstructed communication, and we slowly drifted apart.

It was only recently, through the faceless communication of the internet, that she revealed to me that she had been sexually abused when younger. The trauma she still suffered made ordinary life painful and difficult. For her, something as simple as standing on a crowded train filled her with the same sense of dread I feel when a stranger has been following me through a bad neighborhood late at night.

Now that I understood what drove her counterintuitive behavior, we picked up where we left off. In candid conversation she would tell me about her abuser and the abuse suffered by the friends in her support network. I was filled with revulsion. I used to read such stories in the secular media with a horrified fascination, secure in the knowledge that this could never happen in my community.

Well it happens. It happens in my neighborhood and yours; to my friend and yours. It is important for people to know how widespread this problem is so that they can protect themselves and their children, and so that the religious community can take steps to prevent such horrors from occurring in the future.

Recently, politician Dov Hikind spoke about collecting an abuse task force to deal with this problem in our community. After the initial mention, we have never heard of it again. Possibly he had difficulty finding people in the community willing to deal with this shameful aspect of our lives.

It is shameful, but it is far more shameful to avoid facing it because of our shame. In the past, learning disabilities, mental illness, and cognitive handicaps were all considered stigmas, but our community has progressed and now actively supports people with these difficulties. Let’s do it again, for the victims of sexual abuse. The shame should not be theirs, but their abusers.

We can do it, but only a flood of information can wash the stigma away through the simple power of familiarity.

I urge you to pursue coverage on the subject of sexual abuse – if only on the lack of action being taken to combat it. By spreading awareness, we can prevent the suffering, lost time, and ruined lives suffered by my friend and hers.