Clergy sees new surge in domestic abuse cases

“I don’t get it. My husband and I have been in couples counseling for nine years already, but life at home is getting worse,” says a woman to her clergyperson, her fingers fidgeting with her phone.

“First, the constant sarcasm, then the silent treatment and not knowing what’s really going on with our finances. When he was furloughed last spring, he started throwing things, and one time he started to choke me …” her voice trails off. “He’s been swearing at the children, too, and smacked the dog on its head, hard, the other day, out of the blue. I don’t know what to do.”

Do most clergy know what to tell this woman? Maybe they remember a seminary lecture in which they heard that a couple such as this one shouldn’t be in marriage counseling. Do they suggest the couple stop seeing a therapist together? Maybe they feel the need to hear her partner’s version.

What if the woman’s spouse has recently offered to rig the campus with much-needed technology? What if the congregational leader’s own exhaustion makes them quail at taking on another complicated pastoral situation?

As a congregational rabbi and 12-year member of Jewish Women International’s Clergy Task Force to End Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community, I know I’m not alone in wanting a smarter way to support families suffering from abuse. The pandemic has spurred greater awareness of risk factors for domestic violence.

Our understanding has become more comprehensive and wellcoordinated, more survivororiented, more trauma-informed.

That new thinking is evident in a report recently released by Jewish Women International titled “Domestic Violence in the Jewish Community,” and based on a yearlong needs assessment within the Jewish community.

As the report highlights, survivors seeking help turn first to friends or families, then to clergy. Not a single domestic violence service provider interviewed for the report indicated that survivors turn initially to hotlines/help lines, secular domestic violence programs, medical professionals or law enforcement. Instead, most survivors turn to a trusted community in times of crisis.

Ready or not, clergy are likely to be sought by those intent on leaving homes beset by quarantine and quarreling.

While the report addresses questions particularly facing Jewish communities, many of them are relevant to other faith communities.

For instance, if a victim does decide to leave her abuser, can you as clergy help her to stay in the community? What would a trauma-informed response to her suffering look like?

What if she and her children need transitional shelter? Could you recommend, based on firsthand knowledge, where to go?

Are there resources at hand to offer immediate spiritual nourishment to someone feeling both trapped and full of self-blame for that entrapment?

This report is meant to jumpstart discussions that will lead to culturally specific interventions and robust, innovative partnerships — between clergy and local shelters and between seminaries and local clergy on the front lines, as well as collaborations with real estate investors who could provide long-term housing solutions for those fleeing domestic violence.

Clearly, new thinking about the needs of survivors and new resources to help them are already here. If we clergy are the people with more authority than power, now is the time to lean on that authority to help relocate the very definition of support for the families we serve.