For Tamar, A Brave Survivor

For Tamar, A Brave Survivor

By Michael J. Salamon

The Times of Israel - December 20, 2012

I often receive letters, e-mails and texts from people commenting on some topic or suggesting that I write about an incident. I try to respond to as many as of these as possible while avoiding those that are not constructive. Someone called me a hero for tackling a range of topics considered taboo and writing a book on the Shidduch Crisis and another one on the topic of Abuse. I am without a doubt not a hero but I am very much moved by the people I treat, to help and empower them to form a better life and overcome the challenges of their past.  

I do not focus exclusively on nor do I write write primarily about abuse but the restrictions society places on the topic makes it a fascinating read for many and causes it to collect some notoriety.

There are, unfortunately, many forms of abuse. There have been several recent publicized cases of teachers, rabbis and unlicensed counselors abusing the children entrusted to them. There have even been reports of parents abusing children.The public is becoming much more aware of these situations and when I write about the accepted statistic that one in about four women and one in about eight men will be abused by the time their are eighteen there is a pause to contemplate the enormity of this information. I have considered writing about yet another form of abuse. It exists, I have treated people who have been abused by older siblings .- incest between siblings, but I have not found a way to address it, that is until now. Tamar, someone I do not know, sent me an E mail about her experience. I excerpt it here with her permission in the hope that it raises awareness and helps her heal.

I remember the day I realized I was a victim. I was sitting by the pool with a friend gossiping about girls we knew from summer camp.“She feels she has no innocence anyway” my friend said about another girl at the pool  ”she was raped by her brother, so why should she save herself?” 

I look up in disgusted shock. Unfortunately at age 14 it already was not uncommon to hear that someone was sexually abused, but incest?

“Yea and her parents won’t do anything about it, so she’s angry. Her mother is a yeshiva principal, this would destroy their reputation, so they don’t help her.” 

I ask about another girl. She answers “Well, she wasn’t  raped, but she was molested by her older brother and her parents won’t do anything about it either.” 

The words repeated over and over. She was molested by her older brother. Somewhere in my subconscious things start ticking away. These thoughts assault me like being held underwater.  Never in my life had I even given any thought to putting a name or title on what had happened to me. Instead  I  buried it  in a closet in my heart and never thought about it . Until that very moment, at a pool party, one week before starting high school memories.  Molested? Me? It couldn’t be! Such an ugly word could not possibly describe something that happened to me!  I sit down by my old school desktop PC. I type those hateful words into Google ‘She was molested by her brother’.  I begin to read firsthand accounts of sibling molestation. Some stories describe my life verbatim.

“It’s just a game, don’t be afraid. We’re just kidding around!” He says to me.

“But it’s weird I don’t think we should do it” I reply.

“Don’t worry everyone does it, it’s just a game! ” His response seems convicing.

I flashback to the time I confessed to my parents. I was ten. They freaked out, and I believed the fury was aimed at me. They went screaming out of the room to find my brother. He told them I was pulling a prank and I was repeating stuff I heard on TV. They ate it up. Obviously it’s easier to accept a lie then deal with a harsh truth like this. I got yelled at to never ever joke about something like that again. Well, I didn’t. I felt so ashamed for taking part in something so disgusting that it would cause such an uproar, ashamed for making my parents angry, and ashamed for betraying my brother.

The “games” stopped after that. Though they made a reappearance every once in a while as I grew into an adolescent. There were days I would come home and find my brother lying in my bed, exposed. He would tell me I owed it to him. And I did owe him. My brother took the place that my parents should have occupied. He bought me clothes, school supplies; he fought my battles for me. He taught me how to play sports and he introduced me to new friends.

As a very young adult, I was  blind, deaf, and mute when the games would reappear.  My brain knew I should run, yell, tell him he’s sick. But every time I would just stare in shock, frozen in place, not knowing what to do or say. Words unable to leave my tongue.

Despite these memories, it took me until I was fourteen years old, in the middle of a pool party to realize that something had gone very wrong in my life.

She was  molested by her older brother

Those words changed my life.

I feel like many people have an image of what a survivor of sexual abuse looks like. No longer religious, angry, estranged from the family, dresses rebelliously. I can tell you I am none of those things. If you pass me on the street you will see a standard young Jewish woman, typically found in a blouse and pencil skirt. A rising young professional, with a good relationship with God, my family, and especially with my brother.  I look and act just like you, and just want to move forward with my life. Soak up this image, because it describes the majority of survivors.  This is reality.

There are many messages in Tamar’s piece but none so glaring as this – abuse can happen and when a child reports it they should be believed.

Incest: Just A Family Affair?

If you really want to end child abuse. . .

FRUSTRATION: Those trying to attempting to manipulate reality

August 10, 2009 -- Today was not unlike many other days were The Awareness Center received a phone call from someone who was attempting to manipulate reality.

The individual who called was trying to convince me that by placing the names of alleged and convicted sex offenders on The Awareness Center would mean that the alleged and or convicted sex offender would not be able to earn parnassa (earn a living) for his or her family. The caller went on to say that the sex offender’s children would not be able to get into a good yeshiva (seminary) or find good marriage partners because of what was posted. The caller went on and on about the damage I was causing to the Jewish people.

Today’s caller could not seem to grasp the notion that according to statistics more than half of the known child molesters re-offend over a 25 year period. The caller was also unable to grasp the concept that on average one sex offender would molest over 117 times in their life time.

The man who called today also had a difficult time understanding the fact that the majority of cases of child molestation occurs in the home and not at schools, places of worship, camps, etc.

In the Jewish world the newspapers and orthodox rabbis seem to only focus on sex offenders who are rabbis, teachers and camp counselors; and have been neglecting the fact that the majority of sex offenders are called “mommy”, daddy”, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa and or cousin. The fact is that over 46% of the cases of sex crimes committed against children occur in the home.

Today’s caller was unaware that incest survivors have no place safe to go for help. It often does no good for them to tell a non-offending parent or other relative what’s going on. All too often most adults who are in the lives children who are being abused do not want to get involved, especially when it comes to making hot-line reports regarding their suspicion that children they know may be at risk of harm at home. Then there’s the whole issue that in many cases child protective services are inept in helping incest survivors because the juvenile justice and court systems always seems to focus on keeping families intact.

Another issue is that Jewish communities around the globe seem to be unaware that according to statistics female children are sexually victimized more often then males. In the orthodox world it is only cases which involve male victims that seem to be making it into the news.

We all need to be focusing our efforts on reaching out to the female Jewish survivors. We need to be doing what ever it takes to encourage them to to also come forward and share their stories. The shame always belongs on the perpetrator and not on those who have been sexually victimized.

The Awareness Center has also been receiving so many phone calls and e-mails from survivors begging us to reconsider and stay open.

For the last ten years I’ve been the dyslexic worker -- I’ve been paying to work. The Awareness Center has no funds to remain open. It’s gotten to the point that I’ve been trying to sell my own personal possessions to pay the organizations bills and to keep our phone lines and web page open. I’ll be honest with you, it pains me a great deal to know that we have no choice but to shut down in a little more then two weeks.

The reality is that we need to raise $2,500 just to pay off our bills. This does not include the personal loans I’ve made to the organization. We need to raise another $1,500 to consider staying open in the month of September.

I just don’t have it in me to keep things going without some sort of significant funding. If you really want the organization to stay open, each and everyone of you will help us find the funds to function. The Awareness Center is considered a non-profit organization with 501c3 statues. All donations are tax deductible.


Vicki Polin, MA, NCC, LCPC, ATR-BC
Founder and CEO

I had sex with my brother but I don't feel guilty

I had sex with my brother but I don't feel guilty
By Joan McFadden

The Times - July 15, 2008

 
A woman slept with her sibling for years and has good memories. Not many people understand their relationship, she says

Strangely enough, Daniel's wedding day didn't upset me at all. It was his 30th birthday six months later which really got to me, as he stood there with his wife Alison while they greeted the guests. I can honestly say that that was the only time when I felt real envy and wished desperately that it was me standing beside him, arms round each other as we showed the world how much we loved each other.

It's not as if I'm not allowed to love Daniel, but the way we feel about each other isn't something that we can share easily with anyone else. Daniel is my brother, but since I was 14 we've had a sexual relationship - and that's not something that many people would feel comfortable with.

I've only ever spoken about this once before, and even then it was very much in the abstract. While I was still at university a friend had a major misunderstanding with a relatively new boyfriend when one of his friends had reported back to him that he'd seen her hugging and kissing another man in the union bar. She was firstly annoyed at being questioned and became even more exasperated when she explained that the man in question was her brother, as her boyfriend refused to believe her. Their loud discussion took place in the union with an interested audience, until he finally stamped out in fury, still refusing to believe her. As she flounced back to join us she made a remark about preferring her brother to any other man, whereupon one of the crowd said “Yuck, how pervy!” As she sat down beside me she muttered something like “It's not that strange,” and three or four drinks later I quietly asked her what she'd meant.

Fuelled by drink or maybe just rage, she started talking in a very intense but hushed way about how close siblings could be, going on to say that she was sure that many people experimented sexually with them as they grew up and then simply grew out of it. She said it was like practising your social skills on your family and so long as it was mutual, she couldn't see the harm. I didn't say much - partly because I couldn't believe that I'd met someone who seemed to be like me - and she very quickly clammed up and moved over to talk to someone else and never brought up the subject again.

I think the only reason that I'm talking about it now is to emphasise that I truly believe that she was right - it doesn't happen to everyone but it happens to some, and I don't want to be made to feel guilty about it. Incest is so often spoken about in the same breath as abuse, but if you're close in age and equal in relationship terms then it's entirely different. Of course abuse happens, but it can happen in any sexual relationship and there's an expectation that a family member would never hurt you in the way that someone else could. There's no comparison between siblings close in age having sexual feelings and contact and an adult forcing a younger member of the family to do something they neither understand nor want to be involved in. I think incest is traditionally seen as bad, but in some cultures that isn't the case. When I was small I asked a Sunday school teacher if Adam and Eve's children married each other since they were the first people on earth. She just laughed and didn't reply. Having children with Daniel was never an issue and we were always careful about contraception.

All my memories of my relationship with Daniel are good. He's only a year older than me and we've always been close, especially since we always seemed to be full of nonsense compared with our older sister Jane. She's four years older than Daniel and very studious and focused, while he's bursting with fun and light-hearted enthusiasm. I've adored him for as long as I can remember and my parents were always delighted by our closeness when we were small. We shared friends and moved happily in the same social circles, so I could never understand girls who didn't get on with their brothers.

Things changed when I was 14. I had spent hours getting ready for my first Christmas dance when I knocked on Daniel's bedroom door. It's a dodgy age as you're trying to come to terms with your developing body and worry endlessly about how you look, so his wolf whistle was very welcome as he swept me into his arms and we pirouetted, laughing, around the room, before going downstairs to show off our finery to our parents and Jane.

Daniel's appreciation really helped my confidence and I was aware of him smiling approvingly as boy after boy asked me up to dance, though my greatest pleasure was when he claimed me for the last dance. We giggled home to gossip and hot chocolate with our parents and by the next day all the finery was discarded and life was back to normal.

On New Year's Eve Daniel went to a party and by the time he got home I was already asleep. I was extremely sleepy when he crept into my room and curled up on my bed, which was something we'd both done for years, especially if we wanted to share some snippet of gossip. When he started stroking my hair and face it was a surprise, but I could feel myself drifting pleasurably back to sleep as he caressed me gently. Then I became aware of his hand drifting lower and suddenly I was wide awake as he stroked my neck and started sliding his hand down my vest top. I wasn't scared but I was surprised as he started stroking me, though my overriding sensation was one of sheer pleasure. I instinctively lifted my mouth to his as he kissed me and then he hugged me very tightly and left.

I lay in complete confusion with my mind racing and my body totally turned on. All the sex education I'd had said that this was wrong, that it was abuse and incest. But it hadn't felt wrong and I certainly hadn't felt forced. Rather, I felt that Daniel had stopped long before I'd wanted him to. It was hours before I finally fell asleep but I was sure of two things - that I'd really enjoyed it and I still adored my brother.

The next morning it was clear that Daniel had a hangover but as he grinned up at me from his prone position on the couch there was no awkwardness or regret between us. We didn't discuss what had happened, but went for a long walk that afternoon with Jane and the dog and everything felt the same, down to Jane chiding us about being irresponsible about leaving our parents to do all the tidying up after new year's dinner.

Over the next few years we had sexual encounters every six months or so, each time going farther and farther until I was 17, when we had full sex for the first time. We both went out with other people and there was never any jealousy, although I found it hard to be physically intimate with anyone else. Part of that was because sex with Daniel was so amazing that I had no patience for all the fumbling that seemed to happen with other boys. The sex was never pre-planned, but just always seemed to happen when there was no chance of being discovered.

Every so often I would wonder what people would think if they found out, especially our parents, but it always felt so right and was so exciting that these concerns were never enough to stop me. Sometimes he initiated sex and sometimes I did, but in between times our relationship was as easy, relaxed and affectionate as ever, with the incredible passion of each encounter quietly banked away until the next time.

I missed Daniel when he went to university, but went to stay with him every three months or so. Sometimes we would have sex and at other times neither of us seemed interested. By the time he met Alison he was working and I was a student, and I knew that this relationship was different, but it still came as a shock when he told me he wanted to marry her. However, I was more shocked when he said: “You only have to say and I won't marry her, but then I want us to stay together and not see anyone else. We could be the old boring brother and sister who never got married, but ended up sharing a house because no one else would have them! I know this is meant to be wrong but I've never felt anything so right.” This echoed everything that I've thought about our incestuous relationship over the years. After hours of discussion we agreed that it was time to stop the sexual side of our relationship and also decided that telling anyone else was a bad idea, parting in tears afterwards.

I know Daniel loves Alison, but she's very wary of me. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't see me as a sexual threat, but she thinks of me as an emotional rival and I suppose she's right. It's not unusual - there are countless people dealing with all the emotions that result from partners becoming officially family.

I have wondered if there will ever come a time when I'll look back on my relationship with Daniel in disgust, but I don't think so. Everyone has relationships where the sexual element has ended but a great friendship remains, and that's as good a way as any of summing up what's happened with us. Daniel has a unique place in my affections, as I do with him, and that will never change.

As an academic I have a tendency to draw logical conclusions. I like to see a pattern and resolution, so it does pain me that what appears so lovely and natural to me would be regarded as abhorrent by most people. It's not my subject, but I would be really interested to see a study on incest done on these terms, moving it away entirely from the concept of abuse. However, I simply cannot imagine that many people are happy to talk about it and I certainly wouldn't put my family through hell by being the first to go public.

Three months ago I met Derek and I think this is going to be a lasting relationship. The sex is certainly amazing and he's a warm and lovely man, so I have high hopes for this. The trouble with having someone like Daniel in your life is that it leaves you with very high expectations, but it's hard knowing that the one person you love above everything is out of bounds. Perhaps worst of all is the fact that you can't tell anyone, as his or her disgust would ruin everything.

Names have been changed. As told to Joan McFadden

Spirituality, Sexuality, and How Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse Experience God

Spirituality, Sexuality, and How Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse Experience God

© (2004) By Vicki Polin, MA, LCPC, Michael J. Salamon, Ph.D., and Na'ama Yehuda, MSC, SLP, TSHH

Spirituality and Sexuality are very often confusing issues for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and for several valid reasons. In families where the concept of God is present, a child's first representation of God is either of their parents or through their parents. If you have loving, kind parents you may develop a view of God that is loving and kind. If, however, you grew up in a family of violence your perception of a higher power would be of a being that is controlling, explosive and violent. For children who have been sexually violated by their parents, their role model for God is that of a sex offender. Survivors' internalize a view of a punishing, abusive God, who only allows bad things to happen to them because "God loves them." They live in a place where nothing is safe, not even their thoughts, because God can read those and therefore punished for even feeling angry, upset or disrespectful. Given the way children develop a perception of the world, a survivor of the heinous crime of incest would naturally question the veracity of a kind, loving God.

The Talmud (Moad Katan, 17a) relates that a respected Rabbinical educator was rumored to have been involved in behavior that was "hateful." The commentators suggest that he was either an adulterer or seduced young women. The Rabbis ostracized this individual. Unfortunately, despite this tradition to ostracize such offenders, Jewish communities have not taken such a strong, responsible position toward molesters. Too often when allegations of child molestation are brought to the attention of community leaders, parents or relatives of victim's are reminded that discussing issues of molestation within the community or bringing these types of allegations to the public would result in any number of negative outcomes for the survivor. These consequences include difficulty finding a marital partner of substance for not only the survivor, but also other family members, or could result in the survivor or family members of survivors not getting into good yeshivas (schools). There are tales of families of abuse victims of having to relocate to another town as a result of the political pressures following disclosures. Not only does the survivor have to struggle with their trust and belief in God so does the survivor's family.

We have begun to discuss the possibility of a correlation between assimilation and childhood sexual abuse. According to the most recently available data one in every three to five women, and one out of every five to seven men, have been sexually abused by their 18th birthday. As part of the healing journey, the majority of survivors of abuse reach the point where they try to integrate what happened to them on a spiritual level. Many are in twelve-step programs, surrounded by individuals of other faiths, yet the Jewish survivors often feel different. Jews have very different customs then that of their Christian friends. When a survivor is from an unaffiliated background, they may feel at a loss -- unsure of what to do, or how to do it while survivors from backgrounds that were more traditional and included a Jewish education may feel betrayed by that background. The confusion of the healing process adds to the inability to find a healthy spiritual place within their own religion. So what is a Jewish survivor of childhood abuse to do?

Up until now there have been very few individuals who are "survivor friendly" in the Jewish community. We need to start opening our minds and our hearts to begin listening to survivors of childhood sexual abuse bearing witness. Just like holocaust survivors, who were initially shunned, survivors of childhood abuse need to be allowed to speak in order to heal, to be able to learn to connect with God, to see God as something other then neglectful, abusive and cruel. Those listening to these disclosures have a responsibility to themselves, their families and to the survivors. It is vitally important to make sure they have access to a support group conducted by a trained facilitator who is experienced with compassion fatigue (secondary post-traumatic stress disorder), so they are allowed to debrief and maintain balance, after hearing the voices of survivors.

Karen is a thirty-year-old survivor of childhood sexual abuse. She indicated that she spent her life trying to connect to something that was spiritual, yet felt she was failing. Over the years she approached many rabbis asking them questions. Unfortunately, the Rabbis, due to a lack of training, were unable to help her understand either her questions or the concepts with which she need the most help. Most had difficulty listening to her disclose her abuse history. When Karen was a child, while her father was molesting her, he would say "this is how you know God loves you . . . you know anything that feels this good has to have come from God . . . this is how you know God is inside you." Knowing this information would be critical in understanding Karen's difficulties with the concept of God. Yet most Rabbis doing outreach were unable to help her reframe her experience and make it possible for Karen to learn to connect.

Rivka was in her teens when she first disclosed to a friend that her father, a rabbi was molesting her. Her father was also a principal of a school for young boys. Her friend told her mother, who in turn, went to a local community leader to ask for advice. Because of the stature of her father, the community leader suggested they keep quiet about the abuse. As time went on, Rivka was unable to cope. As a teen she ran into some difficulties and ended up moving into the home of one of her classmates. Due to political pressure within the community, the family that Rivka resided with was asked not to daven (pray) in the synagogue they had been members of for years. The family was dedicated to helping Rivka heal, and were not about to put her out on the streets. Rivka eventually went to college, was able to support herself financially, got married and is the mother of three. Rivka came from a Torah observant upbringing, but from her experiences with the denial of the community, she no longer practices. She feels betrayed by her family, the Jewish community, and most importantly by God. When speaking to community leaders of the town she was from, and when her name is mentioned, they make comments such as she's happy, she is married and has children. But they are not completely correct. Rivka's is in mourning. She misses her biological family, she misses her connection to her community and she feels that has no one to talk to about her feelings about God.

Mitch grew up in family filled with physical and sexual violence. The family belonged to a synagogue and his parents made sure to enroll all their children in programs so that they could learn about Judaism. There was a problem -- Mitch was deaf. None of the Jewish educational programs had interpreters. Mitch was not proficient at lip reading and disclosed that he was bored and felt left out. Growing up Mitch never felt that he was a part of his family since the majority of his family members were not proficient in sign language. He was alone isolated in his deaf world.

School was Mitch's only respite. He was enrolled in a school for the deaf, and could communicate freely with people who could understand and relate to him. Growing up in the South and being deaf meant that he didn't have any Jewish friends. As he reached high school, he wanted to be like his friends. Most of them went to church. Mitch had no concept of God, and was like a sponge to learn, to connect to something spiritual. Mitch's concept of God was that of a father who was filled with anger and rage. No one in the Jewish community ever took the time to meet Mitch's needs. He never was given the opportunity to express his thoughts and feelings about his concepts of God to anyone Jewish. But then the missionaries reached him. Like so many survivors, the desire to feel loved was strong. His new friends knew this and showed him unconditional love. He would do anything to feel loved and cared for, and if it meant learning about another religion, then he did it. When his family realized what was happening they tried to rectify the situation, but again it was done in a way that appeared to be an attempt to control and abuse him. Their attempt was unsuccessful. To this day Mitch's views Judaism as something that is abusive and wrong.

The more our communities, and our leaders are educated on the issues relating to childhood sexual abuse the easier it will be to help heal the oozing wounds of childhood sexual abuse. Band-Aids can only cover up an infection. Our communities need to do major wound care, some individuals may require "spiritual surgery," while others my just need a topical ointment. But together as a community, as a people we can come together and heal the world.

Vicki Polin, Michael J. Salamon and Na'ama Yehuda

Case of the Unnamed Man who Molested His Wife's Younger Siblings

Case of the Unnamed Man who Molested His Wife's Younger Siblings

Netanya, Israel

 

Arrested after being accused of molesting wife's four siblings, three girls aged 5, 8 and 12 and a 3-year-old boy. 

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Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet their own personal needs.

 

Table of Contents:  

2004 

1. Supreme Court finds school principal guilty of sexual abuse (02/19/2004)

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Supreme Court finds school principal guilty of sexual abuse

By Roni Singer, Tsahar Rotem and Yuval Yoaz

Haaretz - February 19, 2004 Shvat 27, 5764

A Haifa elementary school principal was found guilty by the Supreme Court this week of sexually abusing students, aged 8-11, in 1999.

 

The suspect was originally acquitted by the Haifa District Court, but was convicted of abusing his position. The Supreme Court has sent the case back to the District Court for sentencing.

 

The charge sheet states that one afternoon, the principal called three students into his office and ordered them to take off their trousers. He then asked them if they felt ashamed and allegedly touched the genitals of one of the students, and asked him if he enjoyed it.

On another occasion, the suspect ordered an 11-year-old to strip and then touched his genitals. He also allegedly used to ask students to check that they had been circumcized.

Also this week, Netanya police arrested a 30-year-old resident who is suspected of abusing his wife's four siblings, three girls aged 5, 8 and 12 and a 3-year-old boy.

 

Police launched the investigation following a family discussion on Saturday night during which two of the girls alleged that their brother-in-law had touched their private parts over a period of a few weeks about half a year ago.

 

The children's grandfather then filed a complaint with police, and the four children were questioned, with them explaining to officers what the suspect allegedly did to them. He was arrested on Tuesday and denies the allegations.

 

The man and his wife lived with her parents for some time and police believe that that is when he allegedly abused the children.

 

Netanya police said the suspect has been released to house arrest at a relative's home, outside the city. Police expect to indict him soon. Some four months ago, the man's 23-year-old wife filed a complaint with police that her husband had beaten her. The man has been under house arrest since and the couple has divorced.

 

At the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court yesterday, a 30-year-old yachting instructor from Herzliya was remanded in custody until Sunday on suspicion of abusing four 11-year-olds. The judge took the rare decision himself of issuing a gag order on publication of the suspect's name and photograph.

 

The suspect worked for six years as an instructor at a yachting club in the Herzliya marina. One of the children who goes to the youth club told his parents recently that the instructor had done some things with which he was not comfortable. The child eventually told his parents that the instructor would allegedly touch his genitals, and the parents filed a complaint with police.

 

The parents also spoke with the parents of other children in the boy's group and another three children came forward with similar complaints as a result.

 

Police said yesterday that since the suspect has worked at the club for a number of years, they will look into whether other children were also possibly abused by the man.

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We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. 

 

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Case of Unnamed Cop in Tel Aviv

Case of Unnamed Cop in Tel Aviv   Police Officer - Tel Aviv, Israel Served in the IDF - Israel Defense Forces

 

 

A man was sentenced to four years in prison for raping his younger brother.  The boy was between the ages of 6 to 10 years-old at the time of the sexual assaults.  The abuse of the younger brother back in 1984.  The perpetrator became a police officer in 1989, which was during the time he was still abusing his brother.  

Defense attorney Ofer Bartal argued that, apart from the crimes in question, the defendant had exhibited normative behavior, is a father of four, served in the Israel Defense Forces and was a serving policeman for 13 years.

 

If you have more information about this case please forward it to The Awareness Center.

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Table of Contents

2003

1. Four years jail for former cop who raped his younger brother (04/28/2003)

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Four years jail for former cop who raped his younger brother
By Zvi Harel
April 28, 2003 - Ha'aretz 

  The Tel Aviv District Court yesterday sentenced a man to four years in jail for raping and sodomizing his younger brother. The defendant, who is 11 years older than his brother, committed the acts over a four-year period, when the younger sibling was aged between 6 and 10. 

The defendant began committing the crimes in 1984, sometimes as often as four times a week. According to the prosecution, the defendant forcibly raped his younger brother, despite the latter's protestations. Some of the acts with which he was charged are now covered by the statute of limitations. 

The defendant was convicted as part of a plea-bargain deal with the prosecution, and the punishment imposed was the maximum that the court could hand out within the framework of the deal. The defendant was also ordered to pay compensation of NIS 20,000, and was handed an 18-month suspended sentence. 

While arguing over the sentencing, prosecuting attorney Iris Ramati claimed that the victim not only agreed to the plea bargain, but encouraged it, in order to avoid having to testify against his brother in court. 

The defendant joined the police, as a patrolman, in 1988, only to retire from the force 13 years later after he was involved in a traffic accident. His crimes only came to light after he had retired from the force. 

In handing out the punishment, the presiding judges stated that the victim, who is now 25, has tried to commit suicide in the past and, as a result of the pain and humiliation he feels, is a regular drug user. The court also wrote that the victim finds it very difficult to enter into long-term relationships, and that he has spoken of his inability to trust others. 

Commenting on the circumstances surrounding the crimes, the court wrote that the defendant turned his younger brother into "a sex slave" from the age of six, causing him severe emotional damage, some of which is irreversible. 

Defense attorney Ofer Bartal argued that, apart from the crimes in question, the defendant had exhibited normative behavior, is a father of four, served in the Israel Defense Forces and was a serving policeman for 13 years. 

The judges ruled however that, despite the leniency of the plea bargain, it should be adopted in this case.
 

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_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Intrafamilial sexual abuse: Brother-sister incest does not differ from father-daughter and stepfather-stepdaughter incest.

The authors conclude that the characteristics of brother-sister incest and its associated psychosocial distress did not differ from the characteristics of father-daughter incest. 

These findings suggest that . . . sibling incest should not necessarily be construed as less severe or harmful than father-daughter incest.

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Intrafamilial sexual abuse: Brother-sister incest does not differ from father-daughter and stepfather-stepdaughter incest.
Cyr M, Wright J, McDuff P, Perron A
Child Abuse Neglect -  2002 Sep; 26(9):957-73

OBJECTIVE: Three groups of girls who were sexually abused (by either brothers, fathers, or stepfathers) were compared. The purpose was to identify the differing characteristics of the abuse, the family environments, and the psychosocial distress of these children. 

METHOD:  Seventy-two girls aged between 5 and 16 were assigned to one of the three groups. Subjects were matched between groups on the basis of their actual age. Children completed measures of traumatic stress; their mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist-Parent Report Form (CBCL) and other self-report questionnaires on family characteristics. Workers in child protective services completed information regarding the nature and severity of the abuse. 

RESULTS: Results suggested few differences in the characteristics of sexual abuse between the three groups. However, penetration was much more frequent in the sibling incest group (70.8%) than in the stepfather incest (27.3%) or father incest (34.8%) groups. Ninety percent of the victims of fathers and brothers manifested clinically-significant distress on at least one measure, whereas 63.6% of stepfather victims did. Compared with father and stepfather perpetrators, brothers were raised in families with more children and more alcohol abuse.
 

CONCLUSIONS: The authors conclude that the characteristics of brother-sister incest and its associated psychosocial distress did not differ from the characteristics of father-daughter incest. These findings suggest that theoretical models and clinical practices should be adjusted accordingly and that sibling incest should not necessarily be construed as less severe or harmful than father-daughter incest.

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From: Departement de Psychologie, Universite de Montreal, Succursale
Centre-Ville, Que., Canada.

Brother-sister, father-daughter incest equally harmful

Brother-sister, father-daughter incest equally harmful

Child Abuse and Neglect - September 1, 2002

The authors conclude that the characteristics of brother-sister incest and its associated psychosocial distress did not differ from the characteristics of father-daughter incest. These findings suggest that sibling incest should not necessarily be construed as less severe or harmful than father-daughter incest.

Intrafamilial sexual abuse: Brother-sister incest does not differ from father-daughter and stepfather-stepdaughter incest.
Cyr M, Wright J, McDuff P, Perron A
Child Abuse Negl 2002 Sep; 26(9):957-73

OBJECTIVE: Three groups of girls who were sexually abused (by either brothers, fathers, or stepfathers) were compared. The purpose was to identify the differing characteristics of the abuse, the family environments, and the psychosocial distress of these children. METHOD: Seventy-two girls aged between 5 and 16 were assigned to one of the three groups. Subjects were matched between groups on the basis of their actual age. Children completed measures of traumatic stress; their mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist-Parent Report Form (CBCL) and other self-report questionnaires on family characteristics. Workers in child protective services completed information regarding the nature and severity of the abuse. RESULTS: Results suggested few differences in the characteristics of sexual abuse between the three groups. However, penetration was much more frequent in the sibling incest group (70.8%) than in the stepfather incest (27.3%) or father incest (34.8%) groups. Ninety percent of the victims of fathers and brothers manifested clinically-significant distress on at least one measure, whereas 63.6% of stepfather victims did. Compared with father and stepfather perpetrators, brothers were raised in families with more children and more alcohol abuse.
 

CONCLUSIONS: The authors conclude that the characteristics of brother-sister incest and its associated psychosocial distress did not differ from the characteristics of father-daughter incest. These findings suggest that theoretical models and clinical practices should be adjusted accordingly and that sibling incest should not necessarily be construed as less severe or harmful than father-daughter incest.

------------------------------------

From: Departement de Psychologie, Universite de Montreal, Succursale
Centre-Ville, Que., Canada.

Sibling Incest, Madness, and the "Jews"

Sibling Incest, Madness, and the "Jews"

By Sander L. Gilman

Social Research, Vol. 65, No.1 (Summer 1998),  pp. 401-433

How does one organize the categories that we call "deviance"?  To examine the nosology of the deviant in modern (post-Enlightenment) culture one is constrained to use categories of analysis that arise in the spheres of law, medicine, and the social sciences.  That is, the history of deviance in popular and high culture comes to be the reworking of "scientific" categories of difference that overlay the fantasies of the difference, often more complex and more far-reaching than the models themselves.  Incest is just such a category of deviance in modern culture.  One of the most interesting phenomena in the intense, public debate over the past decade about child abuse and incest is the virtual absence of sibling incest as a topic of concern (1).  Ian Hacking has explored the history and philosophy of memory / false memory and the literature on child abuse in the context of the modern fascination with multiple personality (Hacking, 1995).  The object that he is studying simply does not center on sibling incest because the contemporary debate on multiple personalities and abuse do not seem to focus on this problem.  However, it was a question that dominated the debates on incest in precisely the period in French culture from 1874 to 1886 that Hacking quite correctly sees as the period in which the concatenation of relationships he is exploring is made first.  Sibling incest was touchstone for the incest and inbreeding discussion of the late-nineteenth century and one of the often cited "social problems" of that day.  

Case of the Unnamed Sibling Incest

Case of the Unnamed Sibling Incest 

Zevulun, Israel

A 15-year-old boy was arrested after allegedly forcing his seven-year-old sister to have sexual relations with him several times. _____________________________________________________________________________________ 

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Table of Contents:  

1993

1. Two held in incest rapes of minors (07/14/1993)

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Two held in incest rapes of minors
By Yigal Kotzer

The Jerusalem Post - July 14, 1993


Zevulun district police are investigating two cases of incest rape in the Haifa Bay area involving young girls. In one, a 15-year-old boy was arrested after allegedly forcing his seven-year-old sister to have sexual relations with him several times over the past year. In the second, a 33-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of having sexual relations with his four-and five-year-old daughters. He denied the charges, but police juvenile investigators say their examination of the girls verified the accusations.

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We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Jewish Women Talk About Surviving Incest

Jewish Women Talk About Surviving Incest
Bridges - Spring 1991 
Round Table

Alot has been written in the past ten years about the long-term and evestating effects of incest and other sexual abuse.  *But little has dealt with the complex interaction between abuse and racial, ethnic or religious identity.

Those of use who participated in the following round table are all incest survivors.  But we are by no means a representative group. All of us are Ashkenazi, college-educated, realitvely young, and living in the Northeast; none of us has children.

Amy, Carole, Ann Fer, Liz G., and Pam Mitchell are lesbians; Leigh is heterosexual.

The round table is edited down from almost five hours of tape.  –– Liz G.


Liz: I'm 27 years old.  I come from an upper-middle-class family.  I grew up in New York City and in the suburbs of New York.

My father is a doctor and my mother is a teacher.  I'm the product of a fairly rigorous Hebrew education.  My brother is the perpetrator, and the abuse happened from when I was about six until I was ten or eleven.


Leigh: I'm 26 years old.  I'm a graduate student and I'm a dancer.  My parents are both professionals.  I grew up in Philadelphia and then moved to the suburbs.  When I was young, we were very orthodox, and since then my parents have become less observant.  I had an intense Hebrew training and went to Hebrew school until I was 16.  The perpetrator was my father and the abuse went on from when I was four until I was almost twelve., when I started menstruating, and became "unclean".  


Carole Ann: I grew up in Boston.  I'm 39 year old.  I was sexually abused by my brother who is five years older than me, from the time I was seven or eight until I was fifteen or sixteen.  My parents are both Holocaust survivors.  I grew up very working class.  My parents were both factory workers.

They're now retired.  And I grew up very Jewish, whatever that means.  I would say that I grew up with "food as Judaism" –– different foods for different holidays.  My mother tried to keep kosher, but my father kept on mixing up the dishes, so she finally gave up.  They're both from Poland.  They came here in 1950.  I've confronted my brother.  And my mother knows abut the sex abuse.  And my sister-in-law knows.  But nobody knows that anybody else knows they know.


Pam:  I grew up in Southern California. I just turned 39.  I grew up working class.  My parents were both clerical workers.  Both parents were perpetrators, as were my grandmother and numberous people in the neighborhood.  And the abuse started from as far back as I can remember.  I have memories from infancy up through my mid-teens. 

My mother is Jewish.  My father wasn't.  My mother was raised orthodox and rejected religion when she was in her teens and got very involved in the Communist Party, which is how she and my father got together.  I grew up not so much identifying as Jewish as identifying with the Left, which was very Jewish.  I always associated the two closely.  It was during the '50s and I associated both with a lot of fear.  And that feels tied in with my incest experience.

I'm a writer.  I've written extensively about sexual abuse and recovery.

Amy: I'm 43.  I grew up in Queens and then in New Jersey.  I grew up in my mother's extended family.  They were all immigrants from Eastern Europe who arrived at different times before the war.  My father was born in New York.  Both sides of the family were orthodox, which was no big thing –– it just felt like everyone was orthodox.  My perpetrator was my uncle, who was my mother's brother, and considerably older than her.  He was an ultra-orthodox rabbi.  Also he was a veteran of World War II, which I think is important.  And also, he was a college professor, something I only found out recently.  In fact, I found a book –– just the book I've always wanted –– about different Jewish rituals, and it was dedicated to my uncle.  That was  very bizzare.  A wonderful man.

He abused me probably from when I got home from the hospital 'til I was about four and a half.  Also, he abused women in my parent's generation, including my mother.  Mush of my family now knows he abused me, and that's how I started hearing stories from other female relatives.  And what my mother says is that in those days, if you were strongg, you didn't think about it.  She waffles about what kind of effect it's had on her life.

What we did and who we were: Our Jewish identity growing up

Amy:  Particularly when we were living in Queens, being Jewish was the most basic part of my identity. I knew I was Jewish probably before I knew I was a little girl or knew anything else about me.  And that included religous practice.  That included shul, that included what we ate. The only non-Jew we knew in the neighborhood were named Marrano. Everyone else thought that was hysterical.

When I was five, we moved to New Jersey.  My parents sent me to Hebrew school and I freaked out.  It's very likely I connected Hebrew school with my uncle.  I loved school, I hated Hebrew school.  The lonter we lived in Jersey, the more my parents' orthodoxy fell away.

One of the things I grew up with was that you didn't have a choice about being Jewish.  Maybe people used to have a choice but since Hitler, you didn't have a choice.

Liz:  I grew up with that also. My mother would say "even if only one of your grandparents was Jewish, Hitler made you Jewish."

When I started getting into my early tees, my mother could sense that there were ways I was trying to escape from the family, and she would tell me this because she wanted me to know that my attempts would be futile.  I think I was also hooked up the inescapability of being Jewish with the inescapability of being abused.  I think I expected to be victimized –– that's part of what it meant to be Jewish and that's the course of history.

In some ways, my family is observant.  We never kept kosher, but we went to shul on holidays.  My mother still goes frequently on shabes.  We were all sent to Hebrew school.    We had a sukkah in the back yard.  I loved being in the sukkah. I loved a lot of the celebrations.

But one of the reasons I was always so utterly confused as a child was that I was constantly told that there's no safety outside, but I never experienced much safety at home.

I went to Hebrew school, but I couldn't pay attention at all, which I now know is connected to the abuse.  I was realizing recently that what I learned in Hebrew school was how to do Judaism –– how to sing the prayers, and which ones to sing when –– but not what Judaism meant.  Nobody ever explained to me what God meant.  Nobody ever said "THis is why you would want to practice this."

Also a lot of my Jewish identity was and is based on cooking and eating, part of the 'Judaism as Food' that Carole Ann was talking about.

Carole Ann: I knew what different foods went with different holidays.  I didn't know the holiday's larger significance.  I was not sent to Hebrew school because, in that sense my parents were very traditionally Jewish, European, poor.  Women were not sent for education.  My brother went to Hebrew school.  He had to go.  I wanted to go, but I couldn't.

Since the day I got back form my trip to the West Bank this July, I've been mulling over what it is to be Jewish.  What's become clear in my identity is what I am the child of Holocaust survivors.  And I've come to a point in the last few months of finally bieng able to separate, even though it's impossible, my identity as a Jew and my identity as the child of survivors.  My identity as a Holocaust daughter is really my first identity.  Obviously being Jewish overlaps and interconnects with that.

Pam:  I'm the product of a mixed marriage.  My mother is from New York City, but my family lived in California, so I didn't know any of my Jewish relatives until I started college and got my first financial aid check and got on an airplane to New York and met them.  That was a big ambition of mine.  It's interesting hearing people say you can't choose to be Jewish or whatever, because I always felt I was on the outside looking in.  My mother was Jewish and I know that if you're mother's Jewish, the you're Jewish –– I learned that by rote.  My mother was very Jewish-identified in her own way.  She rejected Judaism but she was definitely culturally identified  as a Jew very strongly and always talked about being Jewish in a very positive way.  She rejected her family completely, so I didn't have any ties an extended family.  And we lived in a very Christian neighborhood.  I was aware and took pride in my mother being Jewish.  But it was like . . . My parents were Communists, my mother was Jewish. These were both things I felt pride about and I knew that if I mentioned them to anybody there was likely to be a fight.  And I was ready to fight, but I had to choose my battles.

In the '50s the mainstream Jewish community was not real open to dealing with Communists.  I think my mother stopped feeling welcome in the community because of that.  She was isolated from non-Communists, and then she left the Party, and when somebody would leave, nobody inside would talk to them anymore.  Suddenly, there were no other grown-ups around –– perfect conditions for abuse.

Also all the people I saw who were Jewish were middle class. I think that has a lot to do with who's visible in any community thought, "I really wish I could be Jewish, but you have to be middle class to be Jewish."  I was delighted when I finally did meet my cousins.  If I had grown up in New York, there would have been a million people just like me, instead of just me.

Leigh: I grew up in Philadelphia in a very Jewish family.  We were orthodox; that's what everybody did.  i wasn't aware of non-Jewish people around me. My grandfather was very observant.  My parents were very observant.  I always thought it was hypocritical that they would eat pork in Chinese restaurants.  I too had a lot of good feelings about the celebrations.  i think that was because those were the times that the attention was taken off of me, I could fade into the background.  Other times there was a lot of attention focused on me, always negative.

Being Jewish was just what we did and who we were.  We were the chose people.  And we were better than everyone else.  But it was a this big contradiction.  Growing up, I was taught you have to look nice on the outside.  You go to college, get a man, and it doesn't matter if you had nothing on the inside.  And basically that was what my family was about.  We were nice Jews on the outside.  My mother, who never had any training in Judaism as a child, was Bat Mitzvahed as an adult.  I went to Hebrew school until I was sixteen years old.  But when I was fifteen I rejected every bit of my Judaism until I was twenty-two years old.  

My family does not speak to me now.  My parents are not keen on the way I've chosen to practice Judaism at this point in my life.  Because I incorporated Judaism and Christianity and they're upset about that. I accept Jesus as the Messiah.  I'm actually very observant at this point in my life. I'm almost as orthodox in practice as my parents are.  My husband and Iead a very Jewish life.  We observe that sabbath.  I don't answer the phone on sabbath. I go to services.

Another bone of contention in the family was that I am recovering in a 12-step program and "Jewish people don't have addiction problems." Jewish don't drink, Jewish don't beat their wives, and Jews don't sexually abuse their children.   I was told that all my life.

Carole Ann:  There were ways I felt Jewish but not part of the Jewish community when I was growing up.  Right before Passover my mother used to go out and find big rocks to burn in the oven to make dishes pesadikh.  But just images of her heating up the stones –– that was definitely not American, definitely European and definitely a poor thing to do because she couldn't have two sets of dishes for pesakh.  So it's things like that I connect with immigrants and that fall away with assimilation that I connect to Judaism.  Until the second or third grade, I just assumed that all of my friends were immigrants.  I remember going to one of their houses and their parent spoke English!  I was completely confused.  How could they be Jewish and speak English?  It to me years to figure out.

Amy:  Whether our families expressed it directly or indirectly, Judaism and Jewishness became much more of a life-and-death issue after the Holocaust and I wonder what our families did with that.

Liz:  my mother's whole shtick is that now there's no safety outside the family. Now, that may be because the world is full of anti-Semitic people or because of some other reason.  But one of the reasons I was always so utterly confused as a child was that I was constantly told that there's no safety outised, but I never experienced much safety at home.  

Leigh:  We had that too.  And we also got told that we were the only people who would ever be there for you, and no one will ever love you the way we love you. I'm sure my parents were both sexually abused, so it's amazing to me they could believe that.

Amy:  There seems to be this hidden history of incest and we're the tip of the iceberg.  And we have our suspicions.  We're just figuring out what happened to ourselves much less what happened to the people in our families.  And I think there's also a parallel secret history of anti-Semitism.  

Pam:  A lot of anti_Semitism has gotten played out through sexual abuse.  A lot of my abuse as child came from the neighbor hood and I don't know whether there was any anti-Semitic content to that.  I know we didn't fit in, and I'm sure some of that had to do with being the only Jewish kids in the neighborhood.

Carole Ann: I also grew up with what Liz was talking about –– that the outside world was full of danger and that home was safe –– and it was very confusing to me as a child because I was so clear that home was not safe and I was always being told that it was, and outside the home always really felt safe to me.  And yet here was Mommy saying, "There is what's not safe."   And of course, it's Mommy who you believe.  You're not at a place developmentally to know what you believe is what's right.

We all come from a history of two thousand years of oppression and that is passed down through the generations.  The Holocaust is only one generation away and, whether we were directly affected or not, I think that's a major influence in post-Holocaust Jewish identity today, that's it just isn't safe to be Jewish.

This didn't happen in Jewish families

Liz: I've thought about this a lot, and I still don't think my brother's abusing me had very much to do with his being Jewish, or my being Jewish, or my family's being Jewish.  And likewise, I haven't felt there's been a Jewish component to the response I've gotten when I talk about the abuse.

When I first started remembering the incest, my sense of being Jewish changed immeasurably. I think my ability to be part of the Jewish community now is completely due to the fact that I've remembered incest.

Amy: I definitely identified being Jewish with being sexually abused, in a very primal way.  I've always had this sense that Jews were dirty and weird and wore dirty hats in the house, so for me it was all very much intense self-hate, intense inferiority.  I'm clear now that it came from the incest, but at the time I thought Jews were not very worthwhile.  I also had a the sense of "incestuousness" –– not literally, but that Jewish families were more wrapped up in each other, there was more sexual tension.  I didn't want to be Jewish and followed my Catholic friends around and quizzed them on their catechisms, and ate their cinnamon toast, my introduction to non-Jewish food.