“We cannot end sexual assault unless we acknowledge that it exists, and it’s about time that the Orthodox community takes responsibility for educating its members on this issue”

Existing Jewish organizations that focus on domestic abuse prevention…should be provided with the resources to further develop their existing curricula to educate young people about sexual assault in a way sensitive to the Orthodox community’s needs. Schools should engage with these worthwhile programs in addition to creating their own, tailored specifically to their students. Authority figures like parents, teachers, rabbis, and administrators must normalize conversations about consent and boundaries by talking about it themselves, and by taking the time to educate themselves on the issues. It is not only young people and lay folk who have fundamental misunderstandings of the dynamics of sexual assault, so it is up to people in positions of power to learn.

We cannot end sexual assault unless we acknowledge that it exists, and it’s about time that the Orthodox community takes responsibility for educating its members on this issue.

Talia Weisberg, “Why Orthodoxy Needs Better Sexual Assault Education”, The Sisterhood (5 June 2015) [http://forward.com/sisterhood/309509/why-we-need-better-sexual-assault-education-in-the-orthodox-community/]