Hearing Survivors’ Voices when Reading About Dinah
Please note: This post is about sexual harm and survivor experiences.
This week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, recounts the sexual assault of Dinah, but it does not relay her voice. While she is named six times in Genesis 34, she is primarily defined in relationship to the men in her life (his daughter, their sister). As criminologists and restorative justice practitioners who work with Jewish survivors and organizations, we recommended a comprehensive study on the nature and context of sexual harm in Jewish spaces for many years. In 2024, we conducted the study ourselves through an online survey on sexual, gender-based, and non-sexual harms in Jewish spaces. This Shabbat, we invite you to listen to the voices of those who have been sexually harmed in our Jewish spaces and what they say about their relationships.
Recently published in Contemporary Jewry, our paper “I Went off the Derech”: Pathways to Relational Disconnection after Sexual Harm in Jewish Spaces,” focuses on what survivors shared about the relational impacts of sexual harm that occurs within Jewish institutions and organizations. Participants[1] reported on various impacts of sexual harm, including emotional (86.3%), psychological (76.9%), interpersonal (64.6%), intrapersonal (58.5%), spiritual (43.1%), and physical (35.4%) impacts. For this study, we were interested in the themes that arose about how sexual harm impacts survivors’ relationships. Our analysis found that, following sexual harm, people’s relationships with themselves, with others, and with their Judaism were profoundly impacted. We, therefore, focused on their qualitative responses about the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and spiritual impacts of sexual harm.
Intrapersonal Impacts: Sexual harm affected survivors’ sense of self. Participants described feelings of intense shame, self-blame, and self-doubt. For instance, one wrote, “I thought for a long time that I had done something to deserve it, that this is what women are supposed to experience in this culture, and I was overreacting by feeling awful about it.” Another wrote, “It made me second-guess and question my ability to succeed on my own.” Others reported a loss of self-worth and self-esteem, self-hate, self-implosion, and a sense of separation from their authentic selves. As one participant said, “It was a distancing from myself… I literally froze parts of myself to survive. I shut down a lot because it was the only way to make it through. And I’m still finding those parts and trying to revive them. It’s a lot of trauma recovery work.” Some participants questioned their ability to tell right from wrong, while others noted that their ability to engage in self-care also suffered. Several had issues with eating and sleeping, and many experienced pervasive fear for their safety, reputation, and job security.
Interpersonal Impacts: Relationships with others were significantly strained or severed. This was both internally (isolation, difficulty communicating, altered relationships with others) and externally motivated (others changing their behavior towards survivors, or harm-doers poisoning those relationships). For example, one participant wrote, “No one could understand the abuse, and therefore didn’t feel loved or accepted.” Another indicated that they “felt different to my peers” partly because the harm “changed me in ways I couldn’t relate.” Survivors often isolated themselves, found friendships challenging, and experienced a loss of trust in people, especially men and those in positions of power. Participants also reported difficulty forming and maintaining intimate relationships, saying “I stopped dating” or discussing “romantic avoidance.” Sexual harm impacted participants’ decisions to date or marry, their choice of partners, and their ability to engage in physical and sexual intimacy. One participant indicated “complete dissociation in sexual encounters.” Another wrote, “Because I couldn’t trust myself to read situations right (was my ‘no’ actually appropriate?), I avoided romantic and sexual situations in order to avoid putting myself in a situation where I could misread boundaries.”
Spiritual Impacts: The spiritual impacts of sexual harm in Jewish spaces were profound, with participants experiencing a loss of place, faith, and spiritual people. Many survivors left Judaism or changed their spiritual affiliations. For example, one participant experienced “loss of belief in the institutions that had formed the basis of my Jewish life.” Another “left the institution of Judaism for 30 years.” Some participants experienced a “loss of faith,” questioning their connection to God, spirituality, and organized religion. One participant acknowledged, “I’m not religious at all anymore…I don’t have any interest in being in a community where victims of sexual violence are treated horribly… So yeah. I went off the derech (religious path) relatively immediately.” Another stated, “I lost a lot of faith and am still tending to the spiritual harms of being abused in the presence of sifrei Torah (Torah scrolls).” Others experienced a rupture in their relationships with spiritual leaders, and the very acts of attending synagogue and prayer, once sources of comfort, became sources of stress and pain.
The two most common places where sexual harm occurred were at a Jewish camp (21.4%) or in a synagogue (26.8%). Over 40% of participants experienced sexual harm in a Reform space, with an additional 21% experiencing sexual harm in an Orthodox or interdenominational/trans-denominational space each. We believe this is consistent with the people in the places and organizations that the survey reached, rather than an indictment of any one denomination.
Notably, almost 70% of participants who experienced sexual harm in a Jewish space indicated that they had multiple experiences of sexual harm perpetrated against them, with 40.9% having more than four experiences of sexual harm. This bolsters previous research that sexual harm is rarely a one-time occurrence for those to whom it happens. Of those who experienced multiple instances of sexual harm, 69% had been harmed by different individuals. Consistent with what we know about the risk of experiencing sexual harm, most participants were young when the harm occurred. Just shy of 30% were harmed as minors, and an additional 45.6% were under 30 years old. Finally, most harm-doers were men (88.6%) in positions of power (75.0%).
It is clear that sexual harm in Jewish spaces leads to multiple, co-occurring impacts that affect how individuals relate to themselves (intrapersonal), others (interpersonal), and their Judaism (spiritual). No respondent experienced only one type of impact, and they shared that these impacts were further exacerbated by institutions’ failure to prevent harm initially and/or their unsupportive responses. Participants noted that institutional betrayal made adherence to Jewish values feel like “an empty promise,” deepening their sense of disconnection and further harm.
Listening to Survivors: While the findings are sobering, they offer a pathway towards healing and repair if we respond effectively and appropriately to disclosures. Inappropriate responses can further cut people off from themselves, others, and Judaism. This means we must provide safe options for victims and survivors to report their experiences and address those disclosures in a survivor-centered way. This can help survivors remain connected to their communities and offer them a path towards healing. If we care about Jewish continuity and continued engagement in a post-October 7th world, we need to care about this, too.
Jewish institutions are not immune to sexual harm. The gender breakdown in our study is evidence that sexual harm is an undeniable outcropping of patriarchy and is alive in our Jewish world. It places the etiology of sexual harm in the structures present in Jewish society, not on any one individual perpetrator. Therefore, changes to policy and procedure could help prevent sexual harm. Training on sexual harm, its impacts, and repair opportunities is critical. Additionally, ensuring that leaders engage with courage, rather than organizational protectionism, can lay a foundation for effectively addressing problematic, harmful, and, in some cases, criminal behaviors when they arise. These can help the Jewish world prevent future harm and meet the needs of those who have already experienced it.
Our study is an attempt at helping survivors’ wounds to be seen and their voices uplifted and heard. Our future work will address the restorative, justice, and healing needs of our participants, examine other forms of harm in Jewish spaces, and identify what Jewish leaders need to respond with courageous accountability.
[1] In total, 147 people participated in the study, with 65 indicating they experienced sexual harm within a Jewish space. Of those who experienced sexual harm, 54 completed a demographic profile. These participants ranged in age from 24 to 90, with an average age of 46.64. Almost 95% identified as women. Over 30% were LGBTQIA+. Participants were primarily white (90%) and Ashkenazi (86.43%).
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This piece was co-authored by Dr. Alissa Ackerman and Dr. Guila Benchimol.
Alissa R. Ackerman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at California State University, Fullerton and owner of Ampersands Restorative Justice. She is a “pracademic” and “survivor scholar” in that she incorporates her academic training, practitioner, and personal experiences with sexual violence in her work. Alissa writes extensively on topics related to sexual violence, sexual offending, and sex crime policies in academic journals, books, and OpEds. She is an internationally sought-after speaker, consultant, and trainer. Along with Casey Ballinger, MSW, Alissa is the co-recipient of the 2024 Gail Burns-Smith Award.
Guila Benchimol, Ph.D., is a criminologist, educator, consultant, and victim advocate who works with survivors, faith institutions, and leaders to prevent and address sexual violence and other abuses of power. She has been the Senior Advisor on Research and Learning at the SRE Network (Safety, Respect, and Equity) since she helped guide its launch in 2018. Guila is also the Director of Faith-Based and Community Accountability at Ampersands Restorative Justice. She holds a PhD in Sociological Criminology from the University of Guelph and is a trained restorative and transformative justice facilitator.
