New Novel Takes On Sexual Abuse In Haredi Brooklyn

Hush, a young adult novel, received starred reviews from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and the notoriously hard-to-please Kirkus Reviews. Booklist called it a “stunning debut” and “powerful stuff.” School Library Journal called it “thoughtful, disturbing and insightful.”

Out of the Silence
A new young-adult novel tackles sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox world
By Marjorie Ingall • Tablet Magazine

Hush, a young adult novel by the pseudonymous Eishes Chayil (the pen name is a Yiddish-inflected version of eishet chayil, which means “a woman of valor”), received starred reviews from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and the notoriously hard-to-please Kirkus Reviews. Booklist called it a “stunning debut” and “powerful stuff.” School Library Journal called it “thoughtful, disturbing and insightful.”

So, why hadn’t I heard of it?

A librarian who reads Tablet Magazine alerted me to its existence, saying she hadn’t seen anything about it in the Jewish press. Indeed, a Google search finds only a snotty thread (based on Amazon’s description rather than on the book itself) on an ultra-Orthodox-run discussion board called Hashkafah, and a rave review on the blog The Velveteen Rabbi (written by a female rabbinical student in the Jewish Renewal tradition). That’s it.…

Hush is clearly autobiographical. It’s also clearly written by someone who still feels a lot of love for a community that has repeatedly failed to protect its most vulnerable members. “In Bobov, in Satmar, everywhere—it’s a problem,” a sympathetic but powerless rebbe tells one of the characters. When this rebbe tries to take an abusive teacher out of a yeshiva, his own salary is docked for five months because “he could not destroy the income of a teacher, a father of six children, based on assumptions.” The rebbe says the only thing he can ever do is persuade the teacher to leave for another yeshiva, where, of course, he continues to teach. In another case the police try to get involved, but “there were never any witnesses; everybody was so fearful.” The consequences of lashon hara, having an evil tongue and speaking ill of others in the community, are dire. Gittel’s parents fear that the shadchan, the matchmaker, will never find their daughter a husband if she doesn’t shush, and the entire family will be shunned.…

I interviewed the author via email. (The book’s publicist ferried the messages). Fervent about retaining her anonymity, the author started writing the book at 23, then struggled with it for five years. As a child, she witnessed a friend’s molestation and grew up knowing of several other broken, victimized children in her community.

“It’s a book that came out of a need to tell a story that should have been told a long time ago,”…

“Eishes Chayil” worked as a journalist for several ultra-Orthodox newspapers; one such paper plays a role in the book. “The words ‘sexual abuse’ and ‘molestation’ did not exist” in the Ultra-Orthodox press, she said. “As for cherem [a ban by the community of a person, paper, or business], that happens for things far more trivial than [writing about] sexual abuse. When Mishpacha [an Orthodox magazine in Jerusalem] wrote about a modern Orthodox rabbi, there was an advertiser boycott until appropriate apologies were offered.” Sounds familiar.

“It’s been an extremely painful process for me, as the entire issue of abuse remains an open wound in the Orthodox community,” she continued. “Things are slowly opening up but will take a long time. Borough Park is not a democracy, and even when issues are finally acknowledged, they are done in a certain way, by certain people with the approval of certain authorities. An honest discussion about how this happened and why is not a possibility and is the reason so many victims leave the community entirely or break down.”…

How does she think her former community will feel about Hush? “Obviously such a book is not ‘good for the Jews,’ but I don’t think the Orthodox community yet knows of its existence,” she replied. “It is very new, and I certainly did not announce its release at any wedding or bar mitzvah.” She predicted that the story will be “assumed to be a lie, written by some ‘self-hating Jew’ who ‘just wants attention.’ This is not a society that accepts criticism. And for the element that will know it is true, and applaud it, they must stay silent.”…

Click to read the entire review…

[Hat Tip: FrumFollies.]

Comments

[Ruchama Burrell]

I read the entire review and then went to Amazon to see the comments and probably by the book. Searched several ways. They are not acknowledging its existence at this point. I don't know how to contact them to comment directly about such issues, but I'd be interested in doing so if anyone knows how.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Apologies to the Beatles: Paperback writer

Paper back writer (paperback writer)
Dear Sir or Rabbi, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a blog by a man named Shmarya
And I need a job, 'cause I don't belong to a kollel,
Paperback writer.

It's the sordid story of a dirty man
And his traumatized son doesn't understand.
The story would make a strong man quail,
It's a horrid crime so I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more and it's in the news.
I can make it longer 'cause so much is vile,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make Oprah's list very tight.
But you must not spurn it, for the truth must air
And your heart will ache but I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

Paperback writer - paperback writer
Paperback writer - paperback writer

[Ruchama Burrell]

Whoops, I didn't have the title and pen name correct on my first try. Went back, ordered the book. I'm grateful to have learned about it. I have a friend who has suffered greatly as a result of being unable to stop such crimes in the community he loved and was forced to leave because of these terrible practices. There is so much denial. It's similar to that faced by abused wives who think they are the only ones and it must be there fault. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

[jewishwhistleblower]

This would be the second young adult book that depicts child sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community. The first is Carol Matas' The Primrose Path.

http://www.efc.ca/pages/chronicle/recent.html

"December 1995
The Sisterhood of the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Winnipeg, claiming a "scheduling conflict," abruptly withdraws a speaking invitation to award-winning children's fiction author Carol Matas. The most recent of Matas' 15 books, The Primrose Path, is a story about child sexual abuse by a rabbi. The story has some similarities to a police investigation in Winnipeg in the 1980s, but is based on research on such incidents across North America. (Indeed, on Matas' book tour, people in at least two other cities told her they realized it was a thinly disguised account of some incident in their community.) Although no litigation is pending against the book, the congregation received a legal opinion it could be sued for publication of a libel if it permitted Matas to speak."

[jewishwhistleblower]

The Primrose Path by Carol Matas is also available on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Primrose-Path-Carol-Matas/dp/0921368550

[Yochanan Lavie]

"The Color of Water" also deals with Orthodox sex abuse, among other issues.

[Undercover Kofer]

Just ordered the book on Amazon!

[anon]

can someone post the link to the amazon page? i cant find it!

[Shmarya]

can someone post the link to the amazon page? i cant find it!

Here.

[A nudnik]

Some additional reviews:

http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2010/10/a-review-of-eishes-chayils-hush.html

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7890134-hush#other_reviews

http://www.bloomsburykids.com/books/catalog/hush_hc_887