{"id":2228,"date":"2024-01-03T17:13:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T21:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2024-01-03T17:13:59","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T21:13:59","slug":"acknowledging-historys-harm-sexual-abuse-and-harassment-in-jewish-renewal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=2228","title":{"rendered":"Acknowledging History’s Harm: Sexual Abuse and Harassment in Jewish Renewal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How is history remade?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jewish Renewal\u2019s 2006 ban against Mordechai Gafni is a salient example. This ban is frequently mentioned as proof of Jewish Renewal\u2019s credentials when it comes to dealing with sexual predators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But history is messy. As a historian, I have not found any recorded evidence to support any claims of \u201cpathfinding\u201d Jewish Renewal responses to the many women who had, for<\/em> twenty years<\/em>, anonymously informed a range of Jewish leaders about the abuse they endured at Gafni\u2019s hands. The record suggests otherwise: Reb Zalman and other Jewish Renewal leaders resisted taking action against Gafni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, Gafni moved from one position to another amid a swirl of rumors and allegations. Nevertheless, Jewish Renewal leaders embraced Gafni and they defended<\/a> him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2004, Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of The Jewish Week<\/em> interviewed three women, who were aged 13, 16, and 22 when Gafni assaulted them (for a searing account from one of those women, who went public years later, click here<\/a>). Rosenblatt consulted Zalman; after all, Gafni had just found a home in Jewish Renewal and was considered a rising star by many in the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosenblatt wrote: \u201cReb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the acknowledged leader of the Renewal movement, said he is aware of the allegations against Rabbi Gafni but supports him. \u2018If you want to find fly specks in the pepper, you can always find them,\u2019 Reb Schachter-Shalomi said. \u2018But I\u2019ve watched him teach. He is learned, exciting and charismatic. A good teacher is one who gets people excited.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would take two more years before Reb Zalman issued a herem<\/em> against Gafni. Though Jewish Renewal leaders had long known about the rumors and allegations, the ban was only filed after three women filed an official complaint<\/a> with Israeli police accusing Gafni of rape, harassment, and indecent assault in May of 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charismatic leaders are often protected (enabled) by their followers. Reverence and deference can prevent followers from acknowledging harmful behaviors. It can silence those who try to speak out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charismatic leaders often become pristine characters in the minds of their devotees. Jewish Renewal leaders rely on the phrase \u201cReb Zalman said\u2026\u201d either to support an idea or to quash it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charismatic leadership remains prioritized in Jewish Renewal. Sadly, the lack of oversight and accountability for such leaders has also been a feature of its institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this legacy, it is unsurprising that sexual harassment and other abuses of power continue to be normalized and excused. Uninformed leaders have preferred, like so many before them, to enable and protect predatorial behavior. Perpetrators have been protected. Even when appeals committees have noted gross failures on the part of past Ethics Committees, failures that included not only frightening ignorance about the matters under concern, but conflicts of interest and even bias in favor of the accused, there has been\u00a0no accountability<\/em>\u00a0for such failures, much less any teshuva of any kind. Complainants have been brushed aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I learned from a former student of the ALEPH Ordination Program (AOP) that when she was sent her application packet in 2016, it included a 2003 article by Rami Shapiro entitled \u201cThe Three-Fold Torah.\u201d Shapiro highlighted the \u201crevolutionaries\u201d of the Jewish Renewal movement, among them, Mordechai Gafni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That AOP\u2019s administration did not think to consider what message was being sent to prospective students is deeply disturbing. Is Gafni\u2019s history as a sexual predator \u2013 or Jewish Renewal\u2019s late response to that history \u2013 irrelevant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone will surely claim this was an \u201coversight.\u201d We should ask, however, whether such an \u201coversight\u201d is rather a symptom part of the longstanding tendency to downplay or brush aside evidence of bullying, sexual harassment, and abuse in Jewish Renewal settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a former AOP student, then a faculty member, then a Vaad member, and then AOP\u2019s first Dean of Faculty, I can say this much: sexual harassment and bullying were not exceptional behaviors but (and not infrequently), tolerated ones. Student complaints were generally met with \u201cOh, that\u2019s just\u2026.. (fill in a name).\u201d Boundary breaking, bullying, and sexually abusive behavior was a quirk of character and didn\u2019t need to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, a group of Jewish Renewal rabbis, cantors, and rabbinic pastors issued a Call to Action regarding sexual harassment and bullying in our institutions. We have been glad to find that we are being taken very seriously indeed by leaders in Ohalah and, now, in ALEPH. We believe that there may be hope for addressing institutions which have, in the past, featured little to no transparency, no accountability, and no oversight for its leaders, its teachers, and even those it ordains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many steps in this process. One is to address unfortunate legacies of enabling perpetrators and silencing victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Efforts to erase or rewrite history are symptomatic of a larger problem: the unwillingness to fully acknowledge past harm. No trust can be built without such honest and frank acknowledgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we do now is a test of our intentions, our integrity, and our ethics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must own our history, not rewrite it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story Jewish Renewal tells about its banning of Mordechai Gafni in 2006 is an act of erasure. This ban is frequently mentioned as proof of Jewish Renewal\u2019s credentials when it comes to dealing with sexual predators.<\/p>\n

But history is messy. This story does not stand for some pathbreaking response to victims of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,615,616],"class_list":["post-2228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jewish-renewal","tag-mordechai-gafni","tag-sexual-harassment-and-abuse"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2228"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2233,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions\/2233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}