By
– August 24, 2011
David Mandel and David Pelcovitz have edited and contributed to a landmark volume addressing the problem of sexual abuse in the Jewish community. Mandel is the chief executive of Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services and Pelcovitz is a highly regarded clinical psychologist who specializes in childhood trauma and abuse.
The Jewish community is beginning to acknowledge what has long been a taboo subject: that one can live an observant life while simultaneously sexually abusing children. Being an observant Jew ought be congruent with a dedication to the welfare and safety of children, but psychopathology and deviance often gain the upper hand in influencing individual conduct. While not a surprise to many, the acknowledgment of sexual abuse occurring in the home, in camps, in seminaries, in professional offices, and at the hands of teachers and clergy represents a major break in the wall of silence that stood for decades in the religious community.
This indispensable volume represents the outcome of Jewish mental health professionals realizing the need to guide parents, teachers, and colleagues in the best ways to prevent and treat sexual abuse of children and teens.
This is a uniformly well-written and well edited volume. The editors are to be commended for selecting clinicians and clergy whose experience and erudition inform their contributions. Susan Schulman’s paper on unwanted touch is a superb overview of prevention principles for parents. The school prevention model outlined by Debbie Fox merits national adoption. Halachic issues raised by sexual abuse are sensitively addressed in scholarly papers by Rabbis David Cohen and Mark Dratch. The chapter on the treatment of child victims of sexual abuse, by David Pelcovitz, will provide clinicians with an outstanding review of best practices along with many valuable references. Additional noteworthy chapters focus on the treatment of offenders. One observation the editors will hopefully consider when they discuss this seminal work in public forums is the matter of punishment. Victims of childhood sexual abuse are entitled to know that perpetrators of such crimes are not free to re-offend and that justice has been served. When to treat and when to punish is a crucial moral and societal dilemma that needs to be seriously addressed.
This book will serve as the gold standard reference on the topic of sexual abuse in the Jewish world for clinicians, both seasoned and in training, as well as teachers and rabbis serving the Jewish community. Glossary.
The Jewish community is beginning to acknowledge what has long been a taboo subject: that one can live an observant life while simultaneously sexually abusing children. Being an observant Jew ought be congruent with a dedication to the welfare and safety of children, but psychopathology and deviance often gain the upper hand in influencing individual conduct. While not a surprise to many, the acknowledgment of sexual abuse occurring in the home, in camps, in seminaries, in professional offices, and at the hands of teachers and clergy represents a major break in the wall of silence that stood for decades in the religious community.
This indispensable volume represents the outcome of Jewish mental health professionals realizing the need to guide parents, teachers, and colleagues in the best ways to prevent and treat sexual abuse of children and teens.
This is a uniformly well-written and well edited volume. The editors are to be commended for selecting clinicians and clergy whose experience and erudition inform their contributions. Susan Schulman’s paper on unwanted touch is a superb overview of prevention principles for parents. The school prevention model outlined by Debbie Fox merits national adoption. Halachic issues raised by sexual abuse are sensitively addressed in scholarly papers by Rabbis David Cohen and Mark Dratch. The chapter on the treatment of child victims of sexual abuse, by David Pelcovitz, will provide clinicians with an outstanding review of best practices along with many valuable references. Additional noteworthy chapters focus on the treatment of offenders. One observation the editors will hopefully consider when they discuss this seminal work in public forums is the matter of punishment. Victims of childhood sexual abuse are entitled to know that perpetrators of such crimes are not free to re-offend and that justice has been served. When to treat and when to punish is a crucial moral and societal dilemma that needs to be seriously addressed.
This book will serve as the gold standard reference on the topic of sexual abuse in the Jewish world for clinicians, both seasoned and in training, as well as teachers and rabbis serving the Jewish community. Glossary.
Steven A. Luel, Ph.D., is associate professor of education and psychology at Touro College, New York. He is a developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice. He is co-editor (with Paul Marcus) of Psychoanalytic Reflections on the Holocaust: Selected Essays.
