The Charlotte Jewish News - September, 1995 • Page 19
Wife Battering, Formerly A Well-Kept Secret In Israel,
Has Begun To Come Out Of The Closet, Says An
Authority
Wife battering — until recently
a well-kept secret in Israel— is now
stirring public debate among
women’s groups, social workers,
mental health officials and mem
bers of the judiciary, says an Ameri
can authority on domestic violence.
Dr. Lenore Walker of Denver,
a clinical and forensic psychologist
who spent many hours interview
ing and evaluating 0. J. Simpson be
fore and during his trial, says that
although abuse of women by their
husbands is as commonplace in Is
rael as in the rest of Western soci
ety, it has been hidden from view
because of a traditional reluctance
within the Jewish community to ac
knowledge its existence.
Dr. Walker, who is regarded as
one of the world’s leading experts
on domestic violence, has visited
Israel regularly since 1981 to con
duct seminars and to study
women’s roles. She says the 0. J.
Simpson case, which is closely
as a legal defense in the U.S.,” the
American psychologist says. “Here,
she probably would have been set
free on self-defense grounds. In Is
rael, which has inherited many of
the patriarchal mores of traditional
Judaism, there is still some reluc
tance to limit the right of husbands
to treat their wives and children in
any way they see fit.”
However, the growth of a sub
stantial Israeli middle class and the
spread of women’s organizations
are helping to bring domestic vio
lence out of the closet and into the
light of public attention. Dr. Walker
observes. Even in the ultra-Ortho-
dox community, a growing number
of women are beginning to react to
domestic abuse and have even
formed their own support group of
battering victims.
Dr. Walker notes that when Is-
Dr. Lenore E. Walker
watched on Israeli TV, has helped
raise the profile of domestic vio
lence and dramatize it as a critical
social problem in Israel. The psy
chologist, who was the first clini
cian to do research on what is
known as “battered woman syn
drome,” has testified as an expert
witness in hundreds of court cases,
often on behalf of women who have
killed their abusive husbands or
boyfriends.
In Israel, when cases of wife
battering have arisen, they are of
ten handled quietly through rabbini
cal courts rather than the civil
judiciary, explains Dr. Walker, who
is a Reform Jew.
“It’s the sha — the ‘be quiet’
— mentality that has prevailed un
til now,” she says. “Jewish cultural
values have perpetuated the myth
of the ‘perfect Jewish family’ in
which abuse of a spouse or child is
not supposed to exist.”
However slowly, the climate is
starting to change, she notes, cit
ing a high profile case last October
involving a woman who killed her
abusive husband. A rabbinic court
refused to hear the case because it
was reluctant to focus public atten
tion on the issue of wife battering.
The woman pled guilty in a civil
court and was sentenced to seven
years in prison.
“This was a woman who was
suffering from ‘battered woman
syndrome* which is now accepted
rael is faced with a na
tional crisis, tensions
mount and family vio
lence increases. An aver
age of 20 Israeli women
are killed each year by
their domestic partners.
Stress surged during the
year of the Gulf War, and
the number of deaths from
abuse more than doubled.
However, except for re
ported deaths from do
mestic violence, data on
wife battering in Israel are
not collected in any sys
tematic fashion. Dr.
Walker notes.
There currently are
five shelters in Israel for
domestic violence victims, partly
funded by the Israeli government,
which is also planning 15 counsel-
ing centers. A shelter for Arab
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women was opened in October
1994. Until then, Arab victims of
domestic violence were cared for
in the same shelters as Jewish
women. But cultural differences
made it difficult to counsel both
groups at the same time in the same
shelters she explains.
A very promising development
has been the reaction of Israel’s
civil judiciary, says the clinical psy
chologist, who spoke on “battered
woman syndrome” at a workshop
for Israeli judges last fall in Jerusa
lem. She calls them “highly recep
tive and involved.” Dr. Walker has
been invited to return to attend the
next judicial conference next Oc
tober.
At the same time she expressed
disappointment at the relative un
concern among Israel’s rabbis. “Be
cause they exert a great deal of
religious and moral authority, they
are absolutely central to dealing
with the domestic violence issue,”
she emphasizes.
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