Sins of Omission: The Jewish Community's Reaction to Domestic Violence (review)

Domestic violence remains a problem of staggering proportions. According to data from the National Violence Against Women Survey, approximately 1.5 million women are raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at least once annually; if repeat victimization is taken into account, this number increases to almost 4.8 million.¹ Victims of intimate partner violence are not restricted to one racial, ethnic, or economic group or, as this important and thought-provoking book makes clear, to any one religious group. While data on victims of abuse in national studies do not include information about religious affiliation, Kaufman presents statistics suggesting that rates of abuse in the Jewish community are comparable to estimates in the general population (p. 46). This abuse, and the lack of response of the Jewish community to its presence, is the focus of Kaufman's book. Kaufman, an industrial and organizational psychologist by training, approaches the issue from an organizational perspective. She notes:

In this book I looked at the structure and processes of one specific organization—the Jewish community—in order to analyze it as a living organizational system. I wanted to study how that system impacts its members by looking at how it responds to the scourge of spousal abuse; its acknowledgement of the problem, its method(s) of dealing with it, and the funds it allocates to education, victim treatment, and prevention.

(p xvi)

Toward this end, Kaufman conducted in-person interviews as well as archival research with Jewish lay leaders, rabbis, community professionals and victims of domestic violence primarily from three areas in the state of Massachusetts: the western and middle part of the state and the Greater Boston metropolitan region. She also spoke with persons representing key national Jewish organizations. Persons who participated in the study represented all denominations of Judaism. The result of her work is a comprehensive overview of the community's beliefs, interventions (or lack thereof), reactions, and misperceptions of the problem of spousal abuse. Kaufman carefully documents how denial about the existence of abuse, as well as the lack of knowledge or misinformation about the best way to intervene, prevents many rabbis from responding to the issue. She reveals how the work of many national women's organizations in the Jewish community to seriously address the problem of domestic violence fails to translate into extensive community action at the local level because of factors such as declines in membership among voluntary Jewish organizations (both men's and women's) and the failure of existing organization to collaborate in addressing the problem.

Although Kaufman does not focus primarily on victims, she includes two chapters highlighting the experiences of 22 women, discussing both the impact of their physical and psychological abuse and their experience with the Jewish community and religious leaders. For persons with limited knowledge of domestic violence, these chapters are informative; those with more knowledge will find the women's stories compelling. Kaufman also devotes a chapter to a discussion of Jewish law and what it has to say (or doesn't) related to the problem of domestic abuse. Her review is accessible and particularly helpful for those who know less about such matters. Of special importance is her discussion concerning the "get" or Jewish divorce decree and how the fact that the husband is the one who initiates the divorce process under Jewish law allows for further abuse of Jewish women. Other chapters focus on rabbis and their experiences and response to the problem and the actions (or non-actions) of community leaders and organizations.

Kaufman ends the book by offering a number of suggestions related to what the Jewish community can do to address the problem of abuse. These range from requiring rabbinical seminaries to offer at least one course that includes content on abuse to suggesting that rabbis give at least one sermon or offer one program on domestic violence each year to their congregants...