Amudim, a crisis center focusing on combating sexual abuse and addictions in the Orthodox community, released a video to break the silence and stigma of sexual abuse. The video has been making its rounds on social media in late-May and early June.
“Not in our community,” is the resounding statement, various Jewish authority figures tell victims of sexual abuse in the video.
The clip depicts two parents and their daughter in the same scenario over and over again. Belonging to different Orthodox denominations in several scenes, they are not believed when they tell a school or a synagogue that their daughter is being abused.
“I watched the clip once, twice, and three times, and then I just broke down and cried and cried,” Esti, who later called the Amudim hotline, recalled after she watched the video. Esti, an Orthodox 20-year-old who grew up in Brooklyn had been molested by her older brother. When she told someone she respected at her seminary, she was told “You’ll be dating soon, my dear! Why risk destroying your reputation and everything you’ve worked to achieve?”
