Behind closed doors

They are staggering statistics – and the Jewish community is not immune.

Around 30 per cent of the 311 service coordination referrals received by Jewish Care Victoria in the last financial year identified family violence as the primary reason for contact.

Manager of individual and family services Marilyn Kraner estimates this number to be “just the tip of the iceberg, given the significant and highly impacting feelings of shame and blame that prevent people from help seeking”.

Of the cases reported, 95 per cent were women – “young women, older women; observant, secular; with children, without. Some have been experiencing violence for many years; for others the relationship may be newer,” adds Kraner.

“What is common to all of the cases we see are the challenges that are associated with speaking out in the community, and the barrier that fear and shame can pose.”

In the same financial year period, Jewish Care Victoria also provided support to 30-50 children at any given time within their social housing program. Ninety per cent of families with children seeking housing support were forced to do so as the result of family violence.

Domestic violence does not occur overnight; and it does not occur in a vacuum. There are often gradual patterns of controlling and emotionally manipulative behaviours employed against the victim.

Rachel was a driven, young Modern Orthodox woman. She came from a comfortable background, was confident, articulate and on the way to becoming a leader in her career in the business world. When she met her now ex-husband, she was “completely love-bombed”.

“He paid so much attention to all my likes and interests. I’d never been given that much emotional or mental attention before,” she remembers.

While he didn’t leave her alone and always wanted to know what she was doing, Rachel just thought that was his way of “really loving” her.

“It was that little girl’s fantasy of true love – that you are going to meet the man who sweeps you off your feet. Someone who treats you like a princess and never lets you out of his sight.

“He told me he thought we were soulmates very quickly, and that we were bashert. I’d never experienced anything like that before.”

But just days before their wedding, the couple had an argument and he manhandled her. Rachel warned him to never touch her in that manner again. He promised in agreement and apologised profusely – until the wedding night, when she was exposed to a violent and sadistic side to him.

Choking back tears, Rachel shared how he refused to take into consideration that she expected her period on the date of the wedding. The wedding went ahead anyway.

“Then he got very drunk, and he raped me. It was sodomy,” she tells.

“And that was my wedding night.”

Once newly married, the abuse entered the “soul destroying” phase, says Rachel. The insults and isolation inflicted upon her left her a broken woman. In the ensuing nine years, Rachel systematically experienced sexual, verbal, emotional, physical and financial abuse.

Friends of the family had also been exposed to flashes of his aggression towards Rachel. Yet, not once did anyone come forward to offer any form of assistance at a time when she was buried in a hole so deep that she was incapable of pulling herself out of it alone.

Unbeknown to Rachel, her husband was abusing the children, threatening that he would kill them or their mother if they told anyone.

The final straw came when her eldest child came running to Rachel screaming that her father was hitting the head of her younger sibling against the floor. Rachel grabbed the children, packed an overnight bag and left immediately.

Years after they divorced, she would learn of exactly what the children had endured. The horror of the excruciating details was too much, and resulted in Rachel suffering a heart attack.