Local News

Jewish Domestic Abuse Group Expands

With two new outreach workers, local Jewish domestic abuse group is expanding its work.

It’s not that there was more domestic violence in the Jewish community. It’s just that Dr.  Nancy F.  Aiken, director of the Counseling, Helpline & Aid Network (CHANA), wanted to do a better job of reaching the women and children who needed help.

So last year, Dr. Aiken hired a pair of outreach workers whose jobs are to provide grass-roots support. “I’m always looking to do things,” Dr. Aiken said of Zoreh Farnoosh and Cynthia Ohana, both of whom are employed part time.

CHANA was founded in 1995 as the domestic violence program of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore’s Women’s Department.

The agency’s mission, Dr. Aiken said, is: to assist people in abusive relationships; to educate the community about healthy relationships (including classes on dating and violence); and to provide people an opportunity to help in a meaningful way, since CHANA relies heavily on volunteers whom it trains.

Although Ms. Farnoosh and Ms. Ohana have different titles, they do similar work. Ms. Farnoosh is a community outreach worker; Ms. Ohana is a crisis advocate.

An Iranian Jew, Ms. Farnoosh speaks English and Farsi. Dr. Aiken said CHANA sought someone with those language skills because of the request for bilingual services from clients in the Iranian community.

“That’s what we were seeing in our population, But there is no way I would understand the idiosyncrasies of the Iranian community,” Dr. Aiken said. “You are dealing with another layer of cultural differences, and we felt it best to have someone who knew that culture and that language. What I would take as a simple civil right, some of these women are willing to forgo just because they are so thankful to be here.”

Ms. Farnoosh, a hospital clinic psychologist in Iran before arriving here, said, “Most Iranians don’t know anything about CHANA.”

For her part, last year, the General Assembly was considering a “get bill” to assist Jewish divorces and Ms. Ohana’s years-long fight to obtain one was much in the news.

Now she runs a day care center, and works at CHANA two nights a week and on Sundays. “I meet clients and do intake. I answer calls,” said Ms. Ohana, who has encountered everything from women who just want to talk to one who asked if being verbally abused on a daily basis constituted abuse.

“I try to assess the level of danger,” she said. “Mostly, women don’t want to end the relationship. They just want him to change. They need comfort and to know that it’s not them” doing something wrong.

In praising Ms. Ohana’s enthusiasm, Dr. Aiken said, “This is new for her.  She hasn’t gotten burned out, which happens in this field. She asks questions about how things are handled in the community, and it makes us think.”

Hoping to spread the word about CHANA, Dr. Aiken has applied for two grants. One would allow the agency to create an interactive Web site. The second would allow it to extend its services to children who have witnessed domestic violence. She hopes to hear about both requests next month.

“I get a lot of calls from people saying, ‘How can you say there’s domestic violence in the Jewish community? It’s not true.’ But I was on a program with a rabbi and when that question came up, he replied, ‘If it’s one situation, it’s too many,’” Dr. Aiken said. “I love that comment.” n

How Much?

The most current data on domestic violence in the local Jewish community dates to a 1996 survey conducted for CHANA by the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Of the respondents:

• 25 percent had been victims of violence in their lifetimes;

• 33 percent knew a victim of domestic violence;

• and 5 percent were currently in an abusive relationship.

“Since our survey, there have been 11 other studies of Jewish communities, in cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati,” said Dr. Nancy F.  Aiken, director of CHANA. “Our figures very much reflect national statistics.”

In 2004, Jewish Women International conducted a nationwide survey on domestic violence. It found:

• 5 percent of respondents said they were currently in an abusive relationship;

• 83 percent of rabbis said they knew or suspected at least one case of domestic abuse in their congregations. 

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