Sexual assault doesn’t discriminate — it happens in every community, including religious ones. But this truth is often not easily accepted.
To shed light on this important issue, Amudim — an Orthodox Jewish organization that supports Jews in crisis — made an incredibly powerful video about sexual assault, and how it occurs in all Jewish communities.
The short PSA, “Schools, Shuls and Community,” opens with a mother, a father, and a daughter sitting across from an ultra-Orthodox rabbi. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen to us, not in our community,” the rabbi says, wagging his finger at the family.
In the following scenes, the same actors portray various families, which represent different sects and stripes within the Jewish community, from ultra-Orthodox to modern Orthodox, Yeshivish, and more secular streams as well.
“What you’re describing just doesn’t take place in this community,” another male rabbi says, smiling.
“This type of behavior absolutely does not exist in our school,” a female principal tells the family sitting across from her.
“You must be mistaken, that sort of thing doesn’t happen here,” another authority figure tells the shocked mother, father, and daughter.
The video shuffles between the five different families, focusing on the authority figures’ disbelief of the sexual assault allegations reported by the family.
