Comments (0)Healing, Finally
September 18, 2009Phil Jacobs
Executive Editor
It was in May of 2006 when a group of about 20 trauma survivors met in a hot, stuffy room of an area synagogue. There was one narrow door to enter and exit. Most kept their gaze on that door, cringing as it was shut, cutting off the outside.
One by one, men and women told their difficult stories as best they could. If their molester wasn’t the rabbi, it was the teacher. If it wasn’t the uncle, it was the brother. If it wasn’t the father, it was the neighbor. And so on, and so on.
When it became the turn of one particular young man, his words carried an obvious frustration. He told the story of his molestation. Then he said words to be remembered even more.
It didn’t matter, he said. We could share our stories of molestation until blue in our faces. But nothing, he said, nothing would ever get done. There would not be, he felt, any change. And the rabbis, the ones who should be hearing these stories more than perhaps anyone else, with but two exceptions, weren’t in the room.
When the last person spoke, survivors rushed out of the one door and out onto the street as if they were gasping for oxygen.
Flash forward more than three years.
On Sunday evening at the Weinberg Park Heights Jewish Community Center, more than 200 people — some who were at that 2006 meeting — came to speak, to listen, to offer support.
The Jewish Healing Service enabled survivors to tell their stories to those who needed to hear it. This time many rabbis were present. It gave the survivors validation. The service brought them together with clergy, clinicians, friends and families to a place where there was no one standing alone.
The service — sponsored by the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, CHANA, Jewish Community Services, the Shofar Coalition and the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES — was put together by a special committee of rabbis, clinicians and survivors working under the coordination of the Shofar Coalition’s Elaine Witman.
Rabbi Elan Adler of Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregatioin offered opening remarks, giving impassioned words of encouragement, healing and support. He said that the rabbinic community might not have been there for the survivors at times in the past. That, he said with urgency his voice, will change immediately.
Nancy Aiken, CHANA’s executive director, delivered in her direct, courageous way, a community response and validation to the needs of trauma survivors. Beth El’s Rabbi Dana Saroken offered a mishebeirach, a prayer for healing. Cantor Thom King’s beautiful voice was healing in itself.
All of this was in contrast to the presentations delivered by eight survivors, men and women. Their words were vital, but their display of courage was heartfelt and inspiring.
Audience members were asked to fill out index cards if they so chose, which were then collected by the Shofar Coalition.
One writer left this message: “People like you and nights like this bring me one step closer of telling my story. Thank you, and I will tell when I’m ready. Soon, I hope.”
Another card read: “Being a survivor I can tell you that the pain never goes away. As a 42-year-old Jewish female, in my childhood no one ever said anything. Thank God that is changing.”
I think of that room from three years ago. There were 20 survivors, two rabbis and one educator. Rabbi Shmuel Silber of Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim was there years ago as he was this week. We both remembered that first night, and we looked around to see the hopeful progress. On a night just days before Rosh Hashanah, when many rabbis could have begged off, the daunting needs of their congregations facing them, there were at least 15 rabbis of all denominations.
Rabbis Amy Scheinerman, Gila Ruskin, Nina Beth Cardin, Michael Meyerstein, Tsvi Schur worked as well with Rabbis Adler and Saroken directly on the planning committee showing the survivor community that they no longer are having this conversation in a small room with the door shut.
The challenge for the survivors is now part of the conversation, once and for all.
The door, this time, is wide open.