Breaking the code of silence

Yehudit Shilat, director of Forum Takana, doesn't usually get phone calls in the middle of the night. Last week was different, as the suicide of celebrated ultra-Orthodox author Chaim Walder produced a torrent of calls.

Walder, 53, a popular ultra-Orthodox educator, counselor, and children's author with 80 books to his name, took his own life after he was accused last month of sexually abusing dozens of women and children. On Sunday, a private ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court that deals with sexual abuse cases within the community, confirmed it had heard 22 testimonies from individuals alleging they were abused by Walder, who denied any wrongdoing.

His suicide shocked the Haredi community, but leading ultra-Orthodox figures and most of the community's major media outlets downplayed the allegations of sexual abuse against him in their extensive obituaries and did their best to skirt the issue of suicide as well.

Shilat, who says she was not surprised by the allegations brought against the famed author, believes that if not for the Haredi community's infamous code of silence regarding abuse in general and sexual abuse in particular, Walder's actions – and perhaps his suicide – could have been prevented.

Rumors about Walder's actions were circulating for years, she told Israel Hayom, but Forum Takana had no points of interface with the incidents.

"We can only regret what happened to his victims and what happened to him," said Shilat, adding that in recent years there have been appeals from ultra-Orthodox elements to her, in an attempt to establish a Haredi equivalent of Takana.

"It hasn't happened because their principles are different from ours," she explained. They [Haredi men] find it difficult to sit together and listen to women while for us it's a matter of principle. Cooperation with external elements is also an issue for them. A community needs to be mature in certain ways to create a move that encompasses all the ultra-Orthodox sects.

"I can only assume that were there such early organization, it would have been possible to prevent these acts and perhaps also Walder's desperate act."

Q: Ostensibly, Walder admitted his actions, didn't he? Suicide is not a denial, even if he professed his innocence in the letter he left.

"I do not know. In his case, suicide could have derived from a sense of hopelessness and the thought that there is no way he could withstand what was going to happen. I'm worried by the fact that public figures eulogized him with such honor. It's a tragedy. It's automatic because they still probably don't know how to react – it's an unexpected event and a person of whom it was hard to believe would do these things.

"I'm angry when Haredi teachers tell children they cannot 'speak ill' [of their attackers]. It hints that complaining [over sexual abuse] is prohibited, and these students know they Halachic ban on slander and know what it means," Shilat says.

"It sets back educational actions taken in these schools that teach children that you have to share. Children who have been taught to protect themselves and all of a sudden are told that it's slander and they will 'have no place in the afterlife' – they need to learn all over again what is and isn't slander. The Haredi community will have to rectify that."

Q: Will an entity that assumes responsibility for abuse issues be formed after that happens?

"When we started in 2003 we had no experience. Now, the Haredi community is in a position to do it much better than us."

Forum Takana ("redemption") was formed in 2003 with the aim of discreetly resolving complaints about sexual harassment or abuse by authority figures in the religious Zionist sector. Sexual harassment is a crime, but given that it is often committed without witnesses, and given victims' wariness of coming forwards – something that is doubly true in religious communities – only a small portion of the cases are reported to the police.

The organization's website states that it was "established by Torah scholars, educators, law professionals, and therapists with the goal of preventing sexual abuse by those with authority and standing in the religious society.

"The purpose of the Forum is to create another way of treating complaints of sexual harassment that do not reach law enforcement and legal authorities. The Forum also works to raise awareness of sexual abuse among educators and public figures with authority and standing. All this in order to eradicate the evil from our midst and save the oppressed from the oppressor."

Shilat stresses that the organization is not an alternative to law enforcement, rather one seeking to deal with complaints that were not filed with the police or are not of a criminal nature.

The Forum works in collaboration with the Attorney General's Office and consults with the AG regarding complicated cases it encounters

Q: The purpose of the Forum is to enable religious people to complain about rabbis and religious educators who perform acts that verge on sexual misconduct or are actual sexual abuse. Reaching out to a panel of reputable religious people seems less stressful than filing a police complaint.

"We are here because the criminal procedure is difficult and requires resilience and maturity. By the time it [a trial] takes place years can go by in which the offender can continue to inflict harm. We need an intermediate stage in which the offender's ability is curtailed and this happens when the Forum informs him that if he does not cease his actions, things will be published and people will be made aware to be wary of him."

Q: Isn't it best to just file a police complaint?

"Not every complaint to the police leads to a criminal trial. We need evidence and the laws of evidence are not simple when it comes to sexual offenses because these acts take place in secret, and if there is no forensic evidence or witnesses – it's a problem. A case can be closed for lack of evidence and not lack of guilt and then people think you destroyed a person's reputation for nothing. 

"We do not hold criminal proceedings or put people in jail. Our laws of evidence are more flexible and require less mental strength on the part of a complainant. For us, it's enough that someone violated the halachic norms. We suffice with testimonies from both sides and our attempt to decipher who is telling the truth."

Q: Does Forum Takana have "teeth"?

"We don't. We transfer the responsibility to the employer. We inform him that he is employing a person who has the potential to do harm and make sure he is not in the field and does not violate the Forum's regulations.

Takana, she stressed, "Doesn't deal with all sex offenders – only those with authority figures and educators. An offender could be expelled from the [religious educational] system and get a job at a supermarket and we won't know about it. We want to clean up the educational and rabbinical system."

Forum Takana's operations will soon enter their third decade and Shilat says the changes that have taken place in the national-religious sector are far-reaching.

"No one says it's impossible anymore," she says of sexual misconduct in the community. "Everyone knows it happens. And there is no such thing as not believing [the victims]. Sometimes it's hard to accept, but the majority have left the irrelevant place of silence and denial behind."