Jewish Community Leaders Bullying Vicki Polin

It’s About Taking A Stand

By Vicki Polin

Examiner - August 16, 2013

The attempts at marginalizing the work of The Awareness Center has been one of the most common defense mechanism used by various Jewish community leaders over the last fifteen years. The goal –– deterring those of us who have been pioneering forces of the anti-rape movement in Judaism.

I cannot even begin to tell you how many times various Jewish community leaders have said: “You can only take what Vicki Polin says with a grain of salt”; “Vicki Polin is nothing more then a self-hating Jew” or that “Vicki Polin is nothing more than an insane, man hating, angry bitch”.

These types of tactics are nothing new. They are the exact same bullying techniques used early on and throughout the history of the suffragist movement. Can you just imagine the outrage when back in the early 1840's when women starting joining together globally, demanding they be allowed to have the same civil rights as men –– to be considered their own person, and not just the property of a man. Think about the outrage our society had when Susan B. Anthony came up with the notion that women should also have the right to vote?

What those in leadership positions do not want their community members to realize, is that one grain of salt can merge with others and become a mountain –– just as one drop of water when it joins with another, can soon become a Typhoon.

In the orthodox Jewish world those who started spewing the hate against those of us who speak out against sex crimes are basically all a part of the culture of disturbed dominance –– and should all basically be considered cowards.

With hindsight it should have been expected, that religious community leaders who are afraid of losing their power and control over a society –– by a strong, intelligent, compassionate woman who did not grow up in the Torah observant world –– would be the perfect target for their anger.

Whenever there is someone who is an activist for any cause in which it might change the societal views on a topic, it should be expected that if the pioneering force would also be female, that everyone would automatically assumed that what ever they are doing is out of anger -- with all the negative connotations that go along with it.

When one shines a light on sex crimes in Jewish communities as brightly as I have for the last fifteen years, you would be surprised how many times various caring individuals have told me that I sound too angry.

I should not have been surprised by the number of community leaders who would invest a great deal of time, energy and money using propaganda and the Jewish news media in hopes of “demonizing” those of us passionate individuals who care enough to attempt to protect children and speak out in behalf of adult survivors.

When I started my own personal spiritual quest in the male dominated, orthodox Jewish world fifteen years ago –– and then created The Awareness Center, I had not thought about the fact as a woman I was expected to posses qualities in which women were to be seen as vulnerable, passive, incompetent, unable to make decisions for themselves without consulting with their husband or rabbi first –– let alone be child like. It was as if I was in a time warp –– going back to the early days of the suffragist movement. So many believed that outspoken women were nothing more then neurotic victims of penis envy. Let alone frustrated that they were not men that they would want nothing more then to destroy all male dominated practices in an act of bitter revenge.

For some strange reason my beliefs clashed with the orthodox world. I believe everyone should be educated consumers, I believe that children have the right to grow up in safe homes and communities. I believe that those who have been harmed have a civil right to speak out and find ways to heal, and that those who offend or cover up sex crimes should be criminally charged. I don’t care if I am a woman or a man speaking out. Each and everyone of us have free will and should use our G-d given abilities to speak the truth and be heard and believed.

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History Lesson on Women's Rights - 1913 Emmitsburg, PA.

History Lesson on Women's Rights - Emmitsburg, PA.

1913 - Emmitsburg, PA

If we don't remember the past, we can never learn and grow to make the world a better place.  If it was not for the Women's Movement (Suffragettes), none of us would be advocating for the rights of both male and female survivors of sex crimes.  

In Memory of Andrea Dworkin

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

In Memory of Andrea Dworkin

(September 26, 1946 - April 9, 2005)

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Radical Feminist Writer Andrea Dworkin Dies

By Adam Bernstein

Washington Post - April 12, 2005

Andrea Dworkin, 58, a self-proclaimed radical feminist whose scathing writings about sexuality, and pornography in particular, made her a provocative icon of the women's movement, died April 9 at her home in Washington.

A spokeswoman for the D.C. medical examiner's office said further investigation is needed to determine the cause of death. Ms. Dworkin had a variety of health problems and had several falls after recent knee surgery.

Encouraged by her socially conscious father, Ms. Dworkin embraced dissent from an early age. She refused to sing Christmas carols in elementary school and by sixth grade decided she wanted to change restrictive abortion laws. She admired books by the Bronte sisters as well as Che Guevara.

As a college freshman, she was arrested at the United Nations for protesting the Vietnam War and taken to a women's detention center. A humiliating body cavity search by male doctors followed. Her denunciations of her treatment helped shut down the facility.

Ms. Dworkin spent her career exploring what she considered the subordination of women, which she saw everywhere from marriage to pornography to conservative politics.

Using terms such as "gynocide" to describe a cultural holocaust against women, she was adored by some who found in her writings and lectures a refreshing rebelliousness, and decried by others, including novelist Anne Tyler, who found her tendency toward sweeping statements ludicrous.

Beginning with her book "Woman Hating" (1974), written when she was 27, Ms. Dworkin found her full, strident voice. Embracing a polemical style that sometimes overshadowed the content of her writing, she declared the book's objective was "to destroy patriarchal power at its source, the family, [and] in its most hideous form, the national state."

"Woman Hating" connected foot binding in China, witch burning in Europe, misogyny in fairy tales and pornography. She also argued that gender itself had to be eliminated before sexual equality could be achieved.

Her book "Intercourse" (1987) helped define her as a firebrand because some reviewers said she was labeling all sex as rape. She spent countless interviews denying that, but she had written pointedly over the years about marriage laws that she felt "mandated intercourse."

Perhaps her best-known title is "Pornography: Men Possessing Women" (1981). The book received positive attention from unlikely quarters, including Punch magazine, which said she "writes like a Leon Trotsky of the sex war."

About that time, she teamed with legal scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon to advocate for having pornography ruled a violation of women's civil rights. Their crusade began on behalf of Linda Lovelace, the porn actress who starred in "Deep Throat" and whose best-selling memoir about exploitation, "Ordeal," had just been published.

While teaching together at the University of Minnesota, Ms. Dworkin and MacKinnon conceived of an anti-pornography ordinance that did not ban flesh magazines and videos but enabled those "harmed" by them to sue pornographers for damages. The measure twice passed the Minneapolis City Council but was vetoed by the mayor. Other communities approved the measure, but federal courts ruled the laws unconstitutional on free speech grounds, decisions upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In all, Ms. Dworkin said, she was far happier as a provocateur than a politician.

"I find compromise not impossible but incomprehensible," she said in an interview with New Statesman magazine. "Politicians kept talking to me about incinerators. I was bewildered. They'd vote for the civil rights bill if Legislator X would vote to put some incinerator somewhere -- not in their district, I think. My eyes would glaze over. Then I'd become enraged.

"The trade-offs, the payoffs, sometimes actual blackmail and bribery," she added. "I was good at holding the politicians' feet to the fire, in private and in public, to excoriate them, to move their constituents, but from a basis of principle. That I can do. I have good practical instincts on where dominant structures are vulnerable. This requires a high tolerance for risk and conflict."

Andrea Rita Dworkin was born Sept. 26, 1946, in Camden, N.J., and raised in what became Cherry Hill, N.J. She helped care for her ill mother and was shuffled among other relatives. Her father was a guidance counselor and post office employee, so pro-labor that he once refused a management job there.

Her early desire was to be a Greenwich Village artist, and she made frequent trips to New York, paying her bus fare, she said, by finding "some stupid man . . . and basically exchange sex for money."

Jewish Women Lead the Feminist Movement back in the early 1970s

Jewish Women's History

The Jewish Americans

A Series by David Grubin

Political Activism: The Fight for Equal Rights For Women

In August of 1970, tens of thousands of marchers on New York’s Fifth Avenue demanded equal rights for women. In this film clip, historian Joyce Antler and  author and founding editor of Ms. magazine Letty Cottin Pogrebin, remember the movement’s heyday and how Jewish American women spearheaded the feminist cause.  Rabbi David Silber, Rabbi Mordechai Swiatycki, Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, and Rabbi Laura Geller offer perspectives on the role of women in traditional Judaism.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH PBS film clip

To see other chapters of this series CLICK HERE

If Molly Pitcher can do this, can you imagine the possibilities for you?

If Molly Pitcher can do this, can you imagine the possibilities for you?  Anything is possible if you just believe in yourself!

Mother Jones (Mary Harris-Jones)

Annie Arniel –– Activist for Human Rights

Before anyone could fight for the rights of survivors of sex crimes, we had to fight for women to have the right to be considered human.

If it wasn't for brave women risking their lives for us to have the right to vote -- the women in the 1970s would never have gathered in consciousness raising groups -- where they started learning how many were survivors of sex crimes.  We need to honor early human rights activists like Annie Arniel.

Women's History: Civil Rights For women

PICTURED ABOVE: International gathering of woman suffrage advocates in Washington, D.C., 1888. Seated (left to right) are Alice Scotchard (England), Susan B. Anthony (United States), Isabella Bogelot (France), Elizabeth Cady Stanton (United States), Matilda Joslyn Gage (United States), and Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg (Finland). The names of the individuals standing could not be determined.

Honoring Margaret Sanger

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Honoring Margaret Sanger

Susan B. Anthony - Founder of the Women's Movement

Women's History: Lucy Stone

Jewish Female Survivors of Sex Crimes

Women's Issues: Jewish Survivors of Sex Crimes

THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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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: 
 

Resources:  From a Jewish Perspective

1. Articles (see below)
2. Attorneys Experienced Working with Survivors of Sexual Violence
3. Childhood Sexual Abuse
4. Childhood Sexual Abuse and Pregnancy
5. Domestic Violence
6. Female Survivors Marrying A Kohain
7. Female Sex Offenders 
8. Incest, Pregnancy, Abortion and Halacha (Jewish Law)
9. History of the Anti Rape Movement: People You Should Know
10. History of The Awareness Center - Our first online support groups and The Anti-Rape Daily Newsletter
11. History of Child Abuse and Neglect Laws
12. History of Sex Offender Registries in the United States
13. Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence and Pregnancy Issues
14. Magazines (see below) 
15. Mandated Reporting and Halacha (Jewish Law)
16. Mikva Resources (see below) 
17. Parenting resources (see below) 
18. Quotes From Women (see below) 
19. Resources from a Feminist Perspective (see below) 
20. Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse Testifying at Legislative Hearings

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Articles

1. Can you say SEXISM? When girls are excluded
2. It's about taking a stand 
3. Halachically sanctioned degradation of women makes me scream 
4. Jewish Women Lead the Feminist Movement back in the early 1970s

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Resources from a Feminist Perspective

1. Jewish Feminist Resources - Jewish Feminist Resources gives folks the opportunity to share their "Torah" with each other. We encourage submissions from everyone.
2. Bat Kol: Study from the Inside Out  A unique educational organization that responds to concerns within the Jewish community and beyond with creative and challenging forums for learning.

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Mikvah Resources

1. Information about the Mikvah - Site includes information on:  How to use the Mikvah, Laws of the Ritual Bath Itself, Using a Running Spring, Time for Immersion, Immersion Procedure, General Rules of Separations on the Skin which invalidate immersion, Post-Immersion, Immersion by a Menstruating Woman, For one who has had a Genital Discharge.
2. World Wide List of Mikvah's - Database of Mikvah's all over the world.
3. A Ritual for Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse
4. A Ritual of Healing from Sexual Violence
5. No Ordinary Bath: The Use of the Mikvah in Healing From Incest
6. Healing from Abuse - Mikvah Ceremony for Laura
7. Abortion Ritual

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Mikvah Articles on Healing

1. Jewish tradition takes on new meaning

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Magazines

1. Bridges: A Journal for Jewish Feminists and our Friends - Bridges illuminates a variety of landscapes: for activists, Jews, feminists, lesbians, it is both bread and roses. In these pages, contemporary Jewish feminist culture and politics come alive in all their tumultuous diversity.  Every issue features essays, fiction, poetry, art and reviews on the cutting edge of feminist Judaism, including translations of literature side-by-side with the Ladino, Spanish and Yiddish originals.
2. BRIDGES Submissions Guidelines - Bridges is a showcase for the creative work of Jewish feminists. The editors also welcome work by men and non-Jewish women of particular interest to Jewish feminism. We work with each other and with contributors to publish material that recognizes and values difference. We particularly welcome material by Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews, by people of color, by the old and the young, by lesbians, by those with disabilities, and by working-class and poor Jews. We work with contributors who consider themselves more activist than writer to publish new material on what Jewish feminists are doing.
3. Lilith Magazine - LILITH, the nation's independent nonprofit Jewish women's quarterly, is named for the legendary predecessor of Eve who insisted on equality with Adam. For 20 years, LILITH magazine has been a unique voice speaking out on the interrelationships of Jewish identity and feminism. The magazine brings news of creative lifecycle rituals and holiday celebrations, restores women to Jewish texts and history, showcases Jewish women writers, educators and artists, and illuminates Jewish women's lives in all their religious, ethnic, sexual and social-class diversity. LILITH is a national magazine, a catalyst for action and the resource center for Jewish feminists. LILITH helps individual Jewish women, campus groups and community organizations work for inclusive social and ritual change.  Each quarterly issue of LILITH provides lively reporting, analysis, resource listings, interviews, historical essays, reviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and art. 

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Parenting Resources

1. Parenting issues: Survivors who are parents and parenting children who were sexually abused
2. National Jewish Girl Scout Committee - Non-profit organization which works in cooperation with Girl Scouts of the USA. Its functions are:  * to promote the Jewish Girl Scout award programs and religious services in Girl Scout Councils .  * to assist Girl Scout Councils in extending Girl Scouting in the Jewish Community .  * to encourage cultural exchanges with the Israel Boy and Girl Scouts Federation.
   

  

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Women You Should Know

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Great Quotes by Great Women

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FAIR USE NOTICE

Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.

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/us code/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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Hasidic Village Keeps Women Out of the Driver's Seat

Hasidic Village Keeps Women Out of the Driver's Seat

By Steven I. Weiss

Forward - October 14, 2005

ven as the White House presses Saudi Arabia to permit women to drive, an ultra-Orthodox community in New York has launched a campaign to reassert its ban on female motorists.

During her trip last month to Saudi Arabia, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes delivered a speech in which she stressed the Bush administration’s determination to see Saudi women obtain more rights — including the right to drive.

Meanwhile, in the Hasidic village of New Square, N.Y., religious leaders recently issued a document reminding residents that “women should not sit in the front of a car.” Released in July by the community’s top rabbinical court, the document was aimed at shoring up several communal standards — especially those regarding women’s conduct.

“It’s considered not tzniusdik [modest] for a woman to be a driver, not in keeping with the out-of-public-view [attitude],” village spokesman Rabbi Mayer Schiller said. “If you can imagine in Europe, would a woman have been a coach driver, a wagon driver? It would’ve been completely inappropriate.”

The village’s religious leaders have made an exemption for an 80-year-old woman who was one of the community’s original residents and hadn’t known about the driving prohibition before she moved there.

New Square, a 7,000-person enclave located 40 miles north of New York City, was founded by the late Skverer rebbe Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Twersky, a Holocaust survivor, and his followers. The village was established in 1954 and officially incorporated seven years later. It relies heavily on private charitable donations and on government-assistance programs.

In the recent document, New Square religious leaders reiterated the prohibition against girls riding bicycles; also, women are forbidden from going outside in their long housecoats –– a common fashion staple in many Orthodox communities.

The rules “are nothing new,” Schiller said, but “there’s just a sense that for some of the young people they need to reinforce them.” He added that in the village’s entire history, similar comprehensive lists of communal standards have been posted “maybe five or 10 times, but probably no more than that.”

“If you would poll the community… 97.5% would say, ‘Yes, this is what we want,’” Schiller said.

While the rules are meant to apply to residents, clearly they’re not part of the criteria for endorsing candidates for elective office. New Square’s top rabbis endorsed Hillary Clinton in her successful run for the senate in 2000, and delivered all but a few votes for the former first lady. Clinton spokeswoman Nina Blackwell did not return repeated requests for comment.

The recent document in New Square addressed a wide range of prohibitions. One rule requires that a fence be constructed around houses that have a trampoline. Another states that exercise groups can be formed only with the permission of a rabbinical court and that they require a mashgiach (religious inspector) to oversee them.

Some of the regulations are targeted at men, including a clause instructing male worshippers to keep their cell phones off and to refrain from talking during prayer times. But it is the rules pertaining to women — in particular, those related to driving — that bear a striking resemblance to the Saudi practices criticized by the Bush administration.

In some ways, Saudi Arabia’s laws regarding women are more permissive than the religious edicts in New Square. For example, a Saudi woman is allowed to ride in the front seat of a car if the driver is her husband. While husbands and wives in Saudi Arabia are allowed to walk with each other, New Square men and women always must walk on different sides of the street. In strong contrast to Saudi Arabia, the government does not enforce the religious rules in New Square; violations do not result in any form of corporal punishment. But those who frequently violate the rules in New Square are blackballed from the community.

“I can think of just a handful of cases over the years” in which someone was expelled from New Square’s religious community, Schiller said.

“I don’t think any of these transgressions would get you to be expelled from the community,” Schiller said. But, he added, “If a young woman was driving, that would be fairly serious.”

Schiller warned against drawing any negative conclusions about New Square based on the Saudi situation. “It is a mistake to view a religious practice negatively just because another culture, aspects of which we may find troubling, also practices it,” he said. At the same time, the New Square spokesman was critical of the Bush administration’s efforts in the Middle East.

“American foreign policy has moved towards a messianic, crusading secularism which judges all other peoples by the standards of our own ‘fashionable’ elites,” he said. “This monolithic utopianism inevitably yields spiritual, moral and practical disasters.”

(!983) New rape law knocks down barriers to prosecution

New rape law knocks down barriers to prosecution

By Joseph R. Tybor

Chicago Tribune - October 9, 1983

A man meets a woman at the beach. They have a good time together and make a date later that same day for dinner. After an enjoyable evening out, she invites him to her apartment for a glass of wine. They have a good conversation, but he wants more.

She resists his overtures.  He becomes forceful and threatening.  He pins her against the wall and throws her down.  He holds her down, tears her clothes off and sexually penetrates her.  

Rape?

Under Illinois law, it is unlikely that the woman's acquaintance could be successfully prosecuted for rape.  But that may change under a new law, highly touted by women's rights groups.  The legislation met little visible opposition in the General Assembly and was conditionally approved recently by Gov. James Thompson.

PROSECUTORS ARE reluctant to bring a charge of rape when a woman has consented to a man's company and when there is no evidence of physical harm.  But representatives of women's groups say "date rape" or "acquaintance rape" occurs frequently and should be punished.

One reason for the reluctance to prosecute is that rape in Illinois carries only one penalty, according to representative of women's groups who advocated the new law.  Rape is a Class X felony punishable by 6 to 30 years of mandatory time in prison without the possibility of parole, and only the most severe cases generally are brought to trial.  

The new measure, which is to take effect July 1, 1984, was described by Thompson as an "awesome"revision of criminal sex laws in Illinois.  it would change the classifications and penalties for sex crimes, permit prosecution for "spousal rape" in severe cases, possibly ease the way to prosecute "date rape" and make it easier for victims to testify against assailants.

It is also gender-neutral, allowing for a woman to be criminally prosecuted for rape, a charge that is prohibited under current law.

"ONE OF THE major reasons for change the law was to create a broader classification of crimes, hoping to bring into the system those cases that previously eluded prosecution, said Polly Poskin, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Rape, one of the groups that helped draft the bill.

Specifically, the new law drops the use of the term "rape," repeals eight other sex offenses and incorporates them into four new categories of sexual crime with penalties ranging from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class X felony.

The new law punishes not only "sexual penetration" achieved through the use of force or the threat of force but als "sexual conduct" that involves sexual touching of another through the use of force of the threat of force.

The new classification are criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual abuse and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Julie Hemos, who strongly supported the bill as a legislative liaison for the office of Cook County State's Atty.  Richard Daley, said she believes that as many as 75 percent of all rapes are not prosecuted.

The goal of the new law is not only to increase the number of prosecutions but also to put the focus of the crime on the defendant's behavior and not the victim's conduct.

CURRENT LAW punishes only a male "who has sexual intercourse with a female, not his wife, by force and against her will."

The new law drops the requirement that the conduct be "against her will," words that many felt subjected the victim to possibly degrading cross-examination on the witness stand.

Not everyone is happy with the bill, though it passed last spring by a 110-4 vote in the House and 56-0 vote in the Senate.

"I thought I would be excoriated by the proponents –– the women's rights groups," said one legislator in explaining why he did not vote against the bill though he opposed parts of it.  

Though the bill as touted in some circles as a tough law-and-order measure, the Illinois State's Attorneys Association also couldn't agree on its merits.

At a midsummer meeting, as many prosecutors voted to oppose it as voted to favor it, said Will county State's Atty. Ed. Petka, president of the group.

"The biggest fear of those prosecutors opposed to it was that parts of it would be declared unconstitutional, and we would be placed in a state of present sex crime statutes.:

The group also is trouble by "policy issues" raised in the bill and believes that it may place an unconstitutional burden of proof on the accused.

Under the new law, a defendant may be found innocent if he can show that the alleged victim consented to the act, but the law states that "lack of verbal or physical resistance or submission by the victim. . . shall not constitute consent."

Mel Lewis, former chairman of the state bar association's Criminal Justice Section, said this part of the legislation and new and broader definitions for sexual assault and sexual conduct leave open or possible criminal prosecution "healthy sexual conduct if one of the partners becomes vindictive and vengeful after a falling out."

Under Thompson's recent amendatory veto, which needs the concurrence of the legislature, spousal rape may be charged only under the ost serious, Class X classification: aggravated criminal sexual assault. That involves "sexual penetration" under circumstances that include display or use of a dangerous weapon or which cased bodily harm.

It is considered likely that the legislature will go along with Thompson's changes in the bill.