Shelter Provides Refuge For Battered Orthodox Women

Bat Melech provides rare support for abused religious women, addressing their particular needs as they break cycle of violence and grapple with a painful reality that is particularly taboo in their communities.

Religious, hurt and hopeful
Bat Melech provides rare support for abused religious women, addressing their particular needs as they break cycle of violence, grapple with painful reality particularly taboo in their communities
Zoheret Cohen • Ynet

Once I realized I was about to do an article about a shelter for battered religious and haredi women, I was brimming with stereotypes. I imagined a narrow staircase leading down to a gloomy alcove lit by emergency lighting and crowded with beds, women wearing old, worn-out wigs, bruised children, and air laden with pity and desperation.
 
However, Rabbi Attorney Noach Korman, founder and manager of the Bat Melech organization which started the shelter, assured me I would be surprised after hearing my colorful description, I was still unprepared for the pastoral bed-and-breakfast atmosphere nestled among the citrus groves, the petting zoo, the playground, and the coffee corner. I was even more surprised when I met the women: mostly young, good looking, friendly, and intelligent – women who could be at their peak if it weren't for the difficult reality to which they had fallen victim.

I sat and spoke with them a bit. Oranit, about 20, from the north, experienced coupledom for a relatively short time during which she was degraded and beaten by her husband. She decided to escape to the shelter after he kicked her pregnant belly, nearly causing a miscarriage.

"It takes time to understand that your husband is an abusive husband. It is a notion from other people's stories, not your own personal story. Your husband is just irritable, that's all," she told me. "Until then, I was sure that I apparently deserved the blows, that I am a bad wife, that maybe I deserve it. When my parents tried to hint that there is something problematic in the way he treats me, I fought to defend him. But when he beat my stomach and hurt the baby, I understood that he is the warped one here. Tell me, what can you possibly blame a baby of?"

Today, she is fighting him on two legal fronts with the help of Bat Melech's lawyers.
 
'Sleeping next to your nightmare'

Tamar took a bit more time to decide to pick up and leave – nearly 10 years in which she gave birth to four children, who are currently divided between her and her ex.
 
"Can you imagine 10 years of constant physical, mental, and verbal abuse? To go to sleep every night next to the person who is your biggest nightmare?" she said. When I asked her why she stayed with him, her answer was very simple. "In our house, we don't get divorced. You got married? Deal with it. While you speak of violence, they speak to you about showing him respect. While you speak of divorce, they speak about keeping peace at home. But I don't blame them. They had no idea of the real significance of what I experienced. It even took time for me to understand."
 
Today, Tamar lives in a half-way house that belongs to Bat Melech and serves as a transition between living in the shelter and being independent.
 
"If you would see my husband," said Natalie, "you would never believe he is capable of being violent." She showed me the album from their wedding, a stylish digital album showing a sweet newlywed couple. She wore a Renaissance-style white dress, he a black suit, a large kippah on his head, mischievous eyes and a winning smile.

Following her lead, other women started to show me their personal picture albums. Slowly, I understood that I would not find some rough and tough Mafioso type in them, but entirely typical, likeable guys – the kind you meet in your everyday life.
 
"The saddest thing," said one of the women, "is when no one is willing to believe you that you are being abused until you role up your sleeve to reveal the bruises. Ironically, at first you will do everything in order to hide, disguise, and cover them up. You will do everything to continue playing the game with him of the perfect relationship, so that God forbid, no one will know; so that you're not a topic of conversation for the neighbors, so you don't ruin your children's marriage prospects."

'Problem in all sectors'

Before Bat Melech was founded about 15 years ago, there was no organization in Israel that dealt expressly with religious and haredi women while taking into consideration the complex social implications abuse has in the sector. Therefore, many religious women had no options for breaking the cycle of violence in which they were consumed.
 
"A religious woman will not contact a secular organization," said Rabbi Korman, founder and director of the non-profit organization. "She will be concerned about a conflict of interests in revealing the matter to a foreign body from the outside, about a lack of understanding of her needs as a religious woman, or from stigmas that could affect the family. She will prefer to suffer in silence. In most cases, the community itself will also encourage this type of conduct because family values are given high preference in the religious and haredi sectors.
 
"There isn't always real awareness about the severity of the situation. The natural inclination is towards peaceful channels and compromise. Sometimes it's possible, but in many cases, the woman is in a sick relationship, or even life-threatening situations.

"An abusive man is a character type; it is a kind of warped personality. He could be secular, and he could be religious. Men like this are spread out statistically throughout the population, and we must provide a response to these types of cases in our sector as well," he said.
 
Starting over

Bat Melech, which was founded with rabbinical support, currently operates a shelter made up of two large houses that can shelter up to nine women and their children, a half-way house, an apartment for at-risk adolescents, and an office that provides legal assistance and employs family lawyers to represent the women, as well as psychologists and social workers to accompany the women through the rehabilitation process.

A second shelter recently closed down due to lack of budget. The Welfare Ministry only covers half the organization's costs. The rest is collected from private donors aware of the shelter's activities. However, the recession has also touched down here.

A few lone pomegranates and a jar of honey rest on the shelter's kitchen counter, a reminder of the holiday they just spent together. After years of madness, pain, fear, and anxiety, the women in the shelter celebrated their first New Year without their husbands.
 
Most of them don't have the support of their families. The women in the shelter and the staff act as an alternative family, and the shelter serves as the home they never had.

This year, they hope, will be a bit better for them, a year with a new beginning.

Bat Melech's emergency hotline: 1-800-292-333

More information about the organization can be found here.

Comments

[harold]

He could be secular, and he could be religious. Men like this are spread out statistically throughout the population, and we must provide a response to these types of cases in our sector as well,"

I am glad that they came out with a facility devoted to the comfort and needs that are unique to the haredi population. I am also glad that the author took note that this is not a haredi ONLY problem but a problem that is manifests itself in all segments of society as the laws of statistics invariably shows itself. The difference is that frum people have special needs, religious, kashrus , tznius, etc that secular facilities could not effectively address.

[Adam Neira]

Blessings to the workers of the Bat Melech organisation.

[ruthie]

blessings to the workers of the bat melech organization

[Hometown Postville]

Hopefully this publicity will result in renewed donations so they can continue their work. A hard sell when most of the contributors are likely to be male head of households.

[nachos]

Harold will you fork over any cash to help meet the "special needs" these people have?

[jewishwhistleblower]

It looks like Rabbi Avi Shafran and Agudah are wrong again.

Family Violence? Not in My Community!
by Alice Sparberg Alexiou
Lilith (NY)
Volume 29, Issue 1 - Spring 2004

Miklat, the only battered women's shelter in Israel specifically for Orthodox and Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish women and children, has announced plans to open a second shelter, somewhere in the center of the country. Experts say that the country's current crisis mode has increased violence against women. Miklat founder and president Estanne Fawer told LILITH that in the last year and a half, the shelter has had to turn away 70 women and their children because of lack of space. Fawer created Miklat in 1996.

In fact, religious women are less likely to use secular services, so it becomes imperative to give them shelter where they will feel comfortable and welcome.

Breaking the silence on abuse in the Orthodox world, both in North America and in Israel, apparently upsets Agudath Israel, an organization representing the ultra-right wing of Orthodoxy. In January, Agudah spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran sent LILITH a press release complaining that the attention now being focused on spousal abuse among Jews is tantamount to Orthodox-bashing.

"All the Orthodox rabbis I am privileged to know are exquisitely sensitive toward women, as they are towards men," he writes. Those who take seriously those rabbis' advice, Rabbi Shafran says, "would be rendered virtually incapable of abusing his or her spouse."

Tell this to the women in the Miklat shelters.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

At her Haseneh there was dancing, kvelling,
l'chaiming, breaking of the glass, sheveh broohes, promises made in front of kehelas yisroel and "The Abishter" aka Adoni and of course my favor-ite...the zinging of SEMEN TOV AND MAZEL TOV repeat ad nauseum.

Fast forward this same man who swore and did all of the above beats the living shit and kicks the f_uck out of his Jewish wife who was a "gift" "given to him" by Ha'Shem and her devoted parents who raised her and loved her.

As if that matters or he gives a rat's ass.

The same beautiful Jewish woman who he bestowed The 2010 Ashet Chaiyel Award upon in gratitude for her devotion and hard work gets rushed to the hospital courtesy of her Toryeh and Gemmoyreh studying husband who is on this year's short list for the coveted Ahavas Yisroel and Tikkunkeleh Olamkehleh Awards.

The same sweet man that I personally rely on and believe that though his subsidized
"study" and f_ucking the hunte all day instead of going out to work (that dreaded Anti Semitic 4 letter word) he personally will help bring the coming and MOSHCIACH within my life time if I pay him cash in Dollares Americanos or platinum Rolex watches.

Oomain Oomain and needless to say Oomain.

[Alter Kocker]

Spousal abuse is, unfortunately, present in all races, religions and social strata. Bless the workers at Bat Melech as they are addressing the particular needs of a population segment. This type of support needs to be translated to all segments of the population.

[who knows]

I was always told that spousal abuse does not exist in haredi society, which has proper spiritual compass guided by Gadolei Torah Israel.

[harold]

Harold will you fork over any cash to help meet the "special needs" these people have?

A loaded question, but I will try to answer it honestly.

Plain Joe's have a limited amount of money to give to charities. Everyone has created a methodology as to how they give to charity. There is no right or wrong way to give to charity as long as you give.

Will I seek Bat Melech organization out to send a check - no. If they solicit to my home I would give. I usually give to people that approach me personally for funds, mail solicitations usually go to the trash. As to my methodology for charity it is to give to charities that I have had personal dealings with or someone close to me had.

As an example I would give without being solicited to, Chai Lifeline, Zichron Shlome Refuah Fund, Make A Wish Foundation, Satmar Bikur Cholim, Hatzalah, Chabad to name a few. Then I give to some of the majors like UJA.

An organization like Bat Melech organization I would hope would receive some government funding as well as consideration from some of the majors. Its need should fall into some form of mental health/healthcare umbrella or overlap and should get some of its funding that way as well. I would assume that people touched by spousal abuse would have an affinity to its service needs and would be generous.

[Devorah]

I am going to donate, but don't know anything about this organization. Does all the money go to the women or is there a possibility some money will get into the wrong hands? With all the scams with the Chasids, I want to make sure my dollars are legally applied.

Thank you.

[Jay]

is this any surprise?

[esther]

i don't know if it will be useful for anyone, but there's also a kosher shelter in montreal:
www.aubergeshalom.org

i was told it's the only one in north america.

[Rebecca]

Esther -

That is actually incorrect. There are domestic violence shelters with kosher provisions in New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Baltimore, to name a few. It is not unusual to find NY women at the shelter in LA because of their deep embarrassment over their situation.

Having spent a month at the LA Jewish domestic violence shelter, I can tell you that the workers there were sensitive, compassionate and knowledgeable.

Whoever believes that abuse does not happen in the Charedi community is fooling themselves. I saw it with my own eyes and was told of numerous circumstances by frum therapists of women who were being verbally, emotionally and physically abused by their husbands. (A few were even threatened with guns.)

I myself experienced some rather jarring instances of incredulity from Rebbetzins who were shocked that any man could act like this. On the other hand, I was supported by a wonderful Rabbi that BELIEVED the women who came to him and who encouraged other Rabbis to become educated about domestic violence issues.

Many blessings to the men and women of Bat Melech. May hatzlacha, not to mention money, rain down on you from Shamayim!!! Most of all, may blessings be showered on the women and children who are transitioning through the facilities. I remember how difficult it was, and it takes great courage to leave such a situation.

[Another Israeli Father Wounded by Bat Melech and the Israeli Governement]

Bat Melech helped my (not battered) wife file false charges and get an illegal restraining order, when she could have settled out of court and just gotten divorced. Because of Bat Melech, the fight is continuing for years in secular court, with no resolution at all, and our children are the biggest victims. They never contacted me or checked out the story before attacking viciously with police and restraining orders, even though all the evidence was against her. This is the second time she has done this to a man. The first time was in the USA, and she lost the case. But in Israel, the family courts and welfare office are automatically against the man.

This situation is typical of thousands of cases. See
http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/118248-1300734652-israeli-fathers-fighting-discrimination-in-family-courts.html

[emeslyaakov]

The woman pictured is not orthodox. She is allegedly married, and allegedly a woman. Her hair is not covered, and neither are her shoulders.

This website specializes in bashing Jews and Judaism.

[Shmarya]

The woman pictured is not orthodox. She is allegedly married, and allegedly a woman. Her hair is not covered, and neither are her shoulders.

This website specializes in bashing Jews and Judaism.

Posted by: emeslyaakov | July 10, 2011 at 02:49 AM

Just in case no one has told you today, you're an idiot.

The picture is used to illustrate the story. It isn't the woman's picture.

But I'm sure you're off somewhere telling everyone that Orthodox and haredi women are never battered.

Shoteh.

[leah imeinu]

shmarya,there are many in the jewish community who are battered women,but,they must stay at home,because of the simplest reasons,there is no shelter!no kosher jewish shelter!secondly,their "beloved" close family member wont let them air the stories in public,the only shelters are city shelters provided by the local nyc pd.i know.i tried.

[Unbearably Anonymous]

This shelter has actually helped my wife to "miraculously heal" from her mental illness and portray me as a monster husband (and father) thanks to close legal and social "cooperation", thus succeeding to remove our children from me and further damage family unity. Please remember that Israeli fathers have already no legal rights over their young children. I believe and support giving help to genuine cases of family violence, but whom can claim family violence only produces women victims? Who can comfortably assure donors that statistics have not ben tempered with to generate more funds?