There is no shame in talking about domestic abuse - The Jewish Chronicle

Last November I began writing my grandfather’s life story. During this process, I discovered that he had spent years on a committee supporting a charity for disabled children. They weren’t just fundraising, they were organising events, creating connections and helping to build the kind of infrastructure a community relies on.

What struck me most about his involvement was that there was no personal link. No one in our family needed the charity’s services. But he gave his time anyway. There was something quietly radical in that approach. Giving not out of crisis or necessity, but out of foresight and collective responsibility. It reminded me that the most resilient communities are not built in response to a catastrophe, they’re built in careful preparation for people who might one day need those services, whatever they might be.

That idea, of giving without personal relevance, of helping to build something for others, has strongly shaped my involvement in Jewish Women’s Aid. I now serve as the chair of Young JWA, a group that aims to raise awareness of JWA’s work and fundraise to ensure its services can continue to reach those who need them most.

The younger generation is growing up in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, a cultural shift that revealed the scale and severity of gender-based abuse across industries, religions and communities.

We now know that misogyny, sexist language and crude gestures – acts that might once have been dismissed as “locker-room banter” – are actually harmful and can have significant ramifications for people who grow up not recognising the signs of an abusive relationship.

But while the #MeToo movement might have started key conversations, it didn’t fix the problem. Misogyny, harmful language and abuse of women and girls is still very much there. We find a lot of it is found in online spaces – or behind closed doors.

That’s why JWA’s services continue to be in high demand. Last year, the charity supported 897 women facing domestic abuse and sexual violence, a shocking rise of nearly 25 per cent from the previous year. They help women across all backgrounds, religious denominations and ages, with some clients as young as 14 years old. These numbers remind us that abuse continues to happen in our community, despite any cultural shifts that have taken place between generations. And so, if the need is there, so is the need to support the service.

We often talk about the strength of our Jewish community, and we should. But that strength is apparent not only at our simchas, but in how we support the most vulnerable people in our community. And as young people, we have a part to play.

Our young committee – the first since JWA launched in 1995 – is comprised of a both men and women from diverse backgrounds across the UK Jewish community.

We are so happy to have men on our committee because we know that education and awareness among men and boys are key to addressing this issue. As JWA’s CEO Sam Clifford says, tackling abuse is not a “women’s issue”, it’s a human one.

Philanthropy is a key value of our community, and it is one that young people could, and should, contribute to. But that means doing more than attending an event or making a bank transfer.

We are part of a generation that openly recognises the existence of domestic abuse and sexual violence in the UK Jewish community, and we are here to do what we can to encourage education and awareness to prevent it, as well as raising funds to support the women and children who continue to be directly affected. And there is no silence or shame in that.

We may not be organising the same events my grandfather once did, but the principle behind his work remains unchanged: you do not wait for a crisis to act; you build the support structure and services for when they are needed.

Topics:

Young JWA

Jewish Women's Aid