Are Jewish Battered Women Different?

The story in Monday’s View section on Shiloh Shelter caught my interest because of my involvement with Haven Hills, a comprehensive family violence center serving the San Fernando Valley since 1977. While we at Haven Hills applaud all publicity about this enormous community problem and welcome the addition of this new community service, we are concerned that some of the information in the article might be misleading and thus be a disservice to our community.

Ms. Scarf’s statements might lead the reader to view Jewish battered women as different from other battered women. She seems to imply that denial, isolation, guilt, helplessness, shame and a sense of being the only one with such a problem are unique to Jewish victims of family violence, and that only in Jewish community and family is there pressure to remain in a marriage and blaming of the victim. Our experience at Haven Hills in counseling an average of 300 women per month and having provided shelter to over 1,200 women and children in the past five years, including an average of 15% Jewish clients, indicates that those characteristics apply equally to all victims of family violence regardless of their religion or ethnic background. One of the exciting things that happens in a shelter is the discovery among women of very different backgrounds that their situations, emotions, and experiences as battered women are surprisingly similar. We feel that, instead of focusing on differences, our community needs to recognize that the problem of family violence is societal and rooted in attitudes toward women and an acceptance of the use of physical force for solving problems.

Although the media coverage in recent years, including frequent articles in The Times, has increased public awareness of the problem, there are still many groups in our community who deny that it is their problem. Yet our clients have included every ethnic, religious, age, economic, educational and geographic grouping and regularly match the general statistical breakdowns for the entire Valley population. Nor is family violence a uniquely American problem as the article implied. In fact, the first domestic violence shelter was started in England, and there is now a worldwide movement with programs in most developed and Third World countries, including Israel.

We thank you for your interest and the continued coverage of the problem of family violence by The Times. With your help, maybe the attitudes which keep women in abusive relationships will change.

JUDITH SAMUEL

Canoga Park

Samuel is executive director of the Haven Hills Inc. Family Violence Center of the San Fernando Valley.