Startup Org Shines New Light On Abuse Policies
Sacred Spaces expands focus from helping abuse victims and exposing offenders to reshaping institutions.
In his first summer as director of Camp Ramah Berkshires,
a large Conservative sleepaway camp in the rolling hills of upstate New
York, Rabbi Ethan Linden is intent on ensuring that all the camp’s
policies and procedures are up to code.
That includes, among medical policies, security policies and fire safety procedures, measures to prevent child sexual abuse.
“The core mission of the camp is to care for
children,” said Linden, who will have 750 campers under his supervision
over the course of the summer. “Coming in new, it was a good opportunity
to work with someone who has expertise in preventing the sorts of
nightmare scenarios that keep camp directors up at night.”**
“People are not thinking through these issues in advance,” said Berkovits.
Shira Berkovits, founder and executive director of Sacred Spaces,
a nonprofit launched a year ago that aims to help Jewish communal
institutions develop policies and training to prevent and respond to
abuse, is that someone.
“People are not thinking through these issues
in advance,” said Berkovits, a lawyer, psychologist, consultant and
Jewish educator. “When an issue comes up, people are scrambling to come
up with fixes. If we had a code — just like a fire safety code — our
community could start to think about the issue of abuse in a different
way.”
Shira
Berkovits, founder and executive director of Sacred Spaces, a new
non-profit that aims to help institutions develop policies to prevent
abuse.
The presence of Sacred Spaces, which is now
working with 10 institutions, mostly in the New York area, is being
bolstered by a just-released study by the innovative nonprofit support
group Jumpstart that documents “critical gaps” in schools’ and camps’
anti-child sexual abuse policies. (See exclusive story.)
Taken together, the study and Berkovits’ work
appear to be signaling a shift from what has heretofore been a focus on
helping abuse victims and exposing offenders to reshaping institutions.
Though Sacred Spaces’ first cohort of institutions is focused on
preventing child abuse, Berkovits hopes future initiatives will tackle a
wider range of abuse issues, including sexual harassment and elder
abuse.
Today, Berkovits wants camps, schools, and
synagogues to be less “reactive” and more “preventative” by putting in
place policies based on best practices. She envisions, in the
not-too-distant future, an accreditation system for communal
institutions.
Though the Jumpstart study did not focus on
synagogues, a 2013 study conducted by Berkovits found that 67 percent of
112 synagogues had no policies on child sexual abuse prevention at all;
82 percent of youth directors had never been offered training.
Her results focused on the three largest
denominations (Orthodox, Conservative and Reform). Though Orthodox
synagogues had the highest percentages of an absence of policies and
training — 91 percent of Orthodox youth directors had no training on
child-abuse prevention, and 75 percent of Orthodox synagogues had no
policies on the matter — Conservative and Reform synagogues also proved
sorely lacking.
91 percent of Orthodox youth directors had no training on child-abuse prevention, and 75 percent of Orthodox synagogues had no policies on the matter.
Sacred Spaces’ guide for synagogues suggests
some of the training Berkovits’ research recommends. One such hands-on
example, a bystander intervention workshop intended for synagogue
congregants, details a scenario: At a kiddush lunch, you notice a
congregant help a child to reach a cookie. As the congregant gives the
child the cookie, the congregant strokes the child’s bare arm and kisses
the child’s head. The child squirms and looks uncomfortable.
The question: How does one effectively
intervene? Congregants will conduct a role play, discuss what might hold
someone back from intervening and discuss the most effective way to get
involved.
The workshop, and others like it, is part of a
process that includes a review of current policies and procedures,
interviews with staff, parents and children, a building and grounds
assessment, the development of new policies and ongoing evaluation.
The chair of the child protection committee at
a medium-sized New York synagogue that is working with Sacred Spaces
said that he was “surprised” by the lack of knowledge among his fellow
synagogue leaders on the topic.
“The stigma around sexual abuse is a huge
challenge,” he said. (He, like several institutional officials contacted
by The Jewish Week for this article, requested to remain anonymous to
shield the synagogue’s identity; they did not want their cooperation to
imply that their institutions had an issue with child sexual abuse.)
“Educated, well-meaning individuals were dubious. They think this
[sexual abuse] is something that happens over there, not over here.”
“The stigma around sexual abuse is a huge challenge.”
The committee chair — himself a practicing
pediatrician who has worked on matters of child protection for years —
said the process of instituting policies to protect children from abuse
was “eye-opening.”
“I can barely imagine how challenging it might be for someone not initiated to the topic,” he said. The synagogue — which he described as “very
proactive about inclusion and protection” — began taking the abuse issue
more seriously after Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, former rabbi of
Riverdale Jewish Center, became embroiled in controversy over his habit
of inviting young men to go with him to the sauna.
“We realized the importance of establishing red lines,” he said.
After nearly two years of consulting with
Berkovits, working through policies with the board of trustees, and
introducing the initiative to the community though small discussion
groups, the synagogue in nearing the implementation stage. Policies are
set to take effect in September.
Berkovits hopes to use the synagogue’s policies as a model for other synagogues.
“The issue is very charged. People have put up
all kinds of defense mechanisms to believe it couldn’t happen in their
community,” the chair said. “The truth is, it can and it does. But
changing a culture takes a lot of time.”
Not (only) An ‘Orthodox Problem’
Though the charedi community has shouldered
the brunt of negative publicity on the issue of abuse, Berkovits said
that she has been “surprised” at how receptive Orthodox communities are
to initiating the conversation — often more so than “more liberal
communities.”
Abuse, she stressed, is not an “Orthodox problem.”
“The fact is that institutional abuse, sexual
abuse, abuses of power, they are not (only) Orthodox problems, or even Jewish
problems; they are human problems impacting every community. Unless a
community has invested significant time and resources to address this
issue, they will not be prepared to responsibly handle abuses of power
when they occur — and they will occur.”
Support for Berkovits’ project spans the
denominational spectrum. Rabbi David Ingber, the senior rabbi at Romemu,
a Renewal-inspired congregation on the Upper West Side, plans to work
with Sacred Spaces to evaluate his own synagogue; he also hopes to serve
on the advisory board of the organization.
“The Jewish community is radically unprepared
to deal with this issue,” said Rabbi Ingber. “I’m galvanized by what
Shira is doing — people need to know that her work can help avert so
many future disasters.” He referred to the work as pikuach nefesh —
saving a life. “If you can save one child, you can save a whole world …
we can no longer stand idly by.”
“I’m galvanized by what Shira is doing — people need to know that her work can help avert so many future disasters.”
Rabbi Judah Isaacs, director of community
engagement at the Orthodox Union (OU), the largest Orthodox umbrella
organization, said Berkovits’ work is critical to help congregations
navigate tricky situations, like how to respond to someone convicted of
child abuse if/when they want to rejoin the congregation. The OU has
worked with her on a case-by-case basis over the last five years.
“Shira has helped our synagogues navigate that
difficult space,” he said. “It is critical that our synagogues have
professional help, and don’t try and navigate these situations
themselves.”
Changing the Culture
Guila Benchimol, a consultant for Sacred
Spaces with a master’s degree in criminology and criminal justice
policy, is working with a large Orthodox day school in Toronto to
establish abuse-prevention policies. This month, it will be piloting a
detailed list of policies and protocols developed with help from Sacred
Spaces. They include: limitations on students riding in cars with staff
members; limitations on students being alone in the building with staff
members; methods of communicating with parents about concerns; and
involving government agencies to work with school on reporting abuse.
(The problem of self-policing — reporting abuse to rabbis rather than
law enforcement — has been particularly troublesome in the Orthodox
community, though there are indications that this is changing, Benchimol
said.)
“When we started this work a few years back, people warned us, ‘You’re going to make enemies.’”
“When we started this work a few years back,
people warned us, ‘You’re going to make enemies,’” said Benchimol, who
is writing her doctoral dissertation about sexual abuse in tight-knit
communities, including the Orthodox community. “Then, people really
weren’t open to talking about it.”
Today, that’s changed, she said. “Now, people
want to know more. When you talk about what needs to happen, that’s when
resistance starts.”
According
to a new exclusive study,
40 percent of Jewish day school
have no policies to prevent child sexual abuse.
40 percent of Jewish day school
have no policies to prevent child sexual abuse.
Still, it is the responsibility of leadership and staff at Jewish institutions to start “changing the culture.”
“In the community, abuse is still a difficult
story to tell,” she said. “But it should not be the responsibility of
abuse survivors to force us to change. Their stories should not have to
shock us into action. The onus is on us — to take initiative, to change
our institutions, so there doesn’t have to be another story.”
Sacred Spaces received start-up grants from
several organizations, including the Natan Fund, a giving circle of
young Jewish professionals, which gave the organization its first
foundation grant, and the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York (JWFNY)
which provided a $15,000 general operating support grant.
“We hoped that this grant would not just
provide financial support as Sacred Spaces got off the ground, but also
serve as a statement about the importance of this issue and the great
promise of this particular approach, envisioned and executed by these
excellent leaders,” said Felicia Herman, Natan’s executive director.
JWFNY’s executive director Jamie Allen Black said she is “proud to partner with [Berkovits] on this important work.”
Berkovits, 33, began thinking about ways to
keep children safe as a youth director for the Hebrew Institute of
Riverdale in 2005, and later as a consultant for the OU.
“In the Jewish community, the anti-abuse organizations that exist rarely speak about God or reference Judaic texts in their work,” said Berkovits.
“In the Jewish community, the anti-abuse
organizations that exist rarely speak about God or reference Judaic
texts in their work,” said Berkovits, noting that Vieth consistently
framed his work as a religious imperative — part of leading a “Godly
life.”
“At Sacred Spaces,” Berkovits said, “we see
our mission of creating healthy Jewish organizations as a positive
commandment that goes to the core of our Jewish values and tradition. …
One cannot claim to be religious and turn a blind eye to abuse.”
“In
the Jewish community, the anti-abuse organizations that exist rarely
speak about God or reference Judaic texts in their work,” said
Berkovits.
Berkovits was prompted to write a book after
being “inundated with phone calls” following a 2013 resolution put out
by the Rabbinical Council of America — the largest body of Orthodox
rabbis — calling upon all synagogues and schools to adopt policies
geared towards preventing sexual abuse.
Even as organizations understand that the work
has to happen, there is still a long way to go “in our communal
conversations and awareness,” said Berkovits.
“Part of our work with organizations is
helping them to shift their assumptions and approach to prevention, so
that they take pride in their efforts,” she said.
“Organizations worry that by taking
preventative steps they might somehow be perceived as having ‘an issue
with abuse,’” she continued. “What everyone should understand is that
taking steps to prevent abuse is not something that should be reserved
for those who have had incidents of abuse.
“By then,” she concluded, “it is too late.”
**In 2016, a former
camper at Camp Ramah Berkshires (identified by the pseudonym John Doe in
legal papers) filed a lawsuit against the Jewish Theological Seminary
and the National Ramah Commission alleging that a counselor forced him
to perform a sex act in the woods one summer as a young boy. The suit
accuses camp officials of aiding in a coverup and allowing alleged
abuser Harvey Erlich to sexually abuse four other boys during the 1970s
and 1980s. The plaintiff is seeking $20 million in damages.
JTS told the Jewish Week that they filed a motion to dismiss the case late last year and are still awaiting a decision.