10:31 PM
Gil Student
R. Yaakov Horowitz (link):
[I]t is my strong and growing feeling that the number one risk factor for our beloved children abandoning Yiddishkeit is child molestation/abuse...
A close friend of mine runs a shelter/group home for charedi runaway kids. I recently ran into him at a wedding and asked him what his thoughts were on the correlation between abuse and the off-the-derech phenomenon. His immediate response was, “Yankie, all I deal with is abuse [victims],” meaning that virtually all the teens in his program were molested...
How bad is it? Very, very bad. Click here to read moreTo paraphrase Rudy Giuliani’s famous quote in his 9/11 press conference, the number of abuse victims in our community is more than any of us can bear. I do not keep records of people who call me, or speak to me in public settings, but I would estimate that in the past year months alone between fifty and one hundred abuse victims and/or their parents contacted me. It has gotten so bad that when parents who do not suspect any form of abuse call me to discuss their at-risk children, the very first thing I listen for are the classic red-flags for abuse/molestation...
Much as I would love to pass on the sensitive matter of child abuse and molestation, I feel the burden of responsibility to squarely address it due to the life-threatening danger that it represents to our children. I write these lines because I am haunted by the images of the many abuse victims I have encountered over the years. I visited shelters and substance-abuse facilities where they attempted to recover from drug overdoses. I tried my best to comfort their parents who were going through their own personal gehenom, while their children confronted theirs. I paid shiva calls to bereaved parents and siblings of abused children who later committed suicide and to those whose children’s suicides were presented to the public as death by other cause.
In short, I keep seeing the horrific carnage that the monster of abuse is causing among our children. We have the capacity to banish it to the other side of the door. All we need is courage and conviction.
