TRAPPED IN A PERILOUS PLACE CALLED HOME
The Jerusalem Post
Set – induction:
- Show the picture and ask students to describe it.
(Picture follows lesson plan)
- How does the woman in the picture feel? Why?
- What feelings does the picture arouse?
Write headline on board: "Trapped in a perilous place called home"
- What, in your opinion, is the article going to be about?
Read Golan Azoulai's song out loud.
- Who is the speaker?
- What situation is described in the poem?
- Why doesn't she leave?
Reading:
Motivating question for reading:
While reading, find the reasons the writer gives for women not to leave their abusive husbands?
Individual reading of article.
Discussion:
Why do Jewish women tend to remain in an abusive relationship twice as long as other women?
Homework:
You were asked by the Prime Minister to plan a campaign named:
"Violence in the family is unacceptable".
Plan your campaign, hand in a written suggestion and present it orally in front of the class. You may work individually, in pairs or in small groups.
Trapped in a Perilous Place Called Home
Sharon Shenhav
Adapted from The Jerusalem Post
Why do you take it, why?
You lie in bed and you cry!
Are you too stupid to fly?
You're frightened, eh?
"He's in love with me,
And he is my man, you see.
And yet he beats me.
But he has promised he will
change
Just for me.
He will change just for me."
(Golan Azulai)
Why does a woman remain in an abusive situation? After the first attack, physical or emotional, why doesn't she just get up and leave?
As a woman and as a women's rights lawyer I've asked myself this question innumerable times. Over the years I've seen hundred of battered women and listened to their painful, pitiful stories.
While many of my clients have been women whose lack of self confidence was combined with financial dependence on their spouse, others were intelligent, attractive, accomplished women married to well-known, successful men.
Frightened, embarrassed, intimidated and victimized they were unable to make the decision to help themselves, afraid to go to the police because then the abuse would get worse.
Those who finally found the strength and courage to file an official complaint would often cancel it soon after. They had either been threatened by their husbands or persuaded that a police record would cause their men to lose their jobs.
Since the police and the criminal justice system have failed to protect hundreds of Israeli women from being murdered by the men in their lives my clients hesitated to use the options a lawyer would recommend: police complaint, civil protective order, separation, divorce.
Women who took my advice were often cruelly disappointed by the system.
Police officers weren't always sensitive to the complainant. Often they would ask what the woman had "done" to "provoke" the attack. Husbands would often claim that their wives had, in fact, attacked them and that they had only been defending themselves. They would then file a complaint of abuse against their wives.
In cases where the police recommended prosecution judges were often too lenient, handing down punishment so light as to send the message that "knocking your wife around a bit" isn't a serious criminal act, just something that "happens", even in the best of families.
Civil protection orders, while issued, were short-term. The abusive spouse would return to the home and continue the abuse, sometimes becoming more sophisticated so the bruises didn't show or changing his approach to emotional instead of physical abuse.
Filing for divorce in the rabbinical courts almost always resulted in a request by the husband for shlom bayit, which the rabbi encouraged in the hope of saving the marriage.
I witnessed cases in which there were dozens of hearings after physical abuse, where each time the contrite husband's promise to change his behavior was accepted as proof that reconciliation would occur.
A get was not possible so long as the abusive husband "loved his wife" and wanted another chance.
Violence against women is a problem in every society. While Jewish husbands are supposed to relate to their wives with love, kindness and consideration, too many seem incapable of fulfilling this role.
Research has shown that Jewish women tend to remain in am abusive relationship twice as long as non-Jewish women because their homes are supposed to be peaceful sanctuaries.
If they are not, the woman often feels she is to blame. Her parents, siblings, even her rabbi will encourage her to be a better homemaker, wife and mother.
Those of us who counsel Jewish battered women know that the home is often, in fact, the most dangerous place for a woman to be. More women are murdered in their homes than in any other place.
Recently Golan Azoulai, an Israeli composer and singer, wrote a song about a battered woman in a personal effort to understand the syndrome.
Having heard a woman on a radio call-in program describe 4o years of suffering from an abusive husband, Golan remembered the story of a family member who had left her husband after being physically attacked, only to return to him because he "promised to change."
Struck by the pain in the voice of the woman on the radio, Golan sat down and wrote "Silence", describing the dilemma of the abused woman.
In Israel women's organizations have led the way in counseling battered women who are able to remain in their homes. Such women need to be encouraged to realize their strengths and learn to use the tools available to them in dealing with abusive partners.
Aided by lawyers, social workers and psychologists battered women needn't despair. They can be empowered to end their victimization and build healthy, abuse free lives for themselves and their children.
Golan Azoulai didn't stop at writing a song. He helped found the Association of men Against Violence, which works together with Na'amat, reaching out via lectures and workshops to boys in high schools and men on army bases.
Evidence that abused boys tend to become abusive men makes this kind of work a vital educational tool.
Encouragingly, the prime minister recently said there must be an end to the victimization of women by abusive men and announced the funding of a campaign to increase public awareness of family violence.
This acceptance of responsibility for education and financial participation in providing it will make the government an important partner in creating a society where no woman or child need live in fear, one where home is a haven and not a trap.
The time is past when a victim of spousal abuse needs to "take it" even if that spouse is a public figure.
Our society must send a clear, unequivocal message to abusers and their victoms. Violence in the home is unacceptable.
The writer was legal adviser to Na'amat and director of its legal services in Jerusalem. She currently directs Na'amat's Overseas Division.