There is no excuse for domestic violence

MICHELE MARR

One sweltering afternoon in 1989, while grocery-shopping at a

Super-Sol in Downtown Tel Aviv, a woman I had never seen before came

up to me and said, “Excuse me, may I speak with you?”

From her manner and tone I got the impression she wasn’t going to

ask which aisle the couscous was in. “Yes, of course,” I said and she

began to tell me a most unsettling story.

Two years before, she had emigrated from New York to Israel and

after some months she met a man to whom she became engaged then

married. Her husband lived with his retired parents in a two-bedroom

flat. He worked at a bank.

From the day she first moved into the home, he treated her like a

servant. She did all the cooking, cleaning, everyone’s laundry and

ironing, when and how he or his mother told her to do it.

If a meal was bad or a shirt not pressed quite right, her husband

slapped and insulted her. If she appealed to him he hit her with his

fists. He gave her no money. She was not allowed to leave the house

alone or without his permission.

This day, I could see, she had a bruised cheek, a swollen lip and

what could well be bruises encircling her wrists. When she pulled her

collar away from her neck, she exposed dark fingerprints on her

shoulders and throat.

This day her in-laws had gone to the doctor’s office without her

and she had slid out a window of the flat she was locked in. She had

come up to me, an utter stranger, for help. I scarcely had a

kindergartener’s command of Hebrew and no knowledge at all of

Israel’s social service system.

But I was member of a small faith community in Jaffa where I’d

seen many strangers given food and shelter, assistance, money and

hope. So I took this trembling stranger there. Her story took place

nearly 15 years ago in Tel Aviv but other stories like it takes place

every day, anywhere.

The web site of National Domestic Violence Hotline (800-799-SAFE;

800-787-3224; www.ndvh.org) says, “Domestic violence cuts across

lines of race, nationality, language, culture, economics, sexual

orientation, physical ability and religion to affect people from all

walks of life.” The American Medical Assn. estimates it costs our

nation from $5 billion to $10 billion a year.

Frequently described as a silent epidemic, Loveisnotabuse.org,

which is sponsored by Liz Claiborne, says, “[It] is everybody’s

problem and everybody needs to be part of the solution.”

Often religious leaders are the first to be approached for help,

while historically they have often been ill informed, ill educated

and ill equipped to provide good counsel and assistance. All too

often domestic violence is seen as the private business of the

husband as head of the household.

Earlier this month Sts. Simon and Jude’s JustFaith, Faith

Formation and Women Creating Community programs presented a panel

discussion with Tesa M. Meadows the community educator for Human

Options (www.humanoptions.org), Louise Micek the director of Bethany

Transition House and Shirl Giacomi the chancellor of the Diocese of

Orange addressing these issues.

Although more than 33% of women murdered in 2000 were killed by an

intimate partner and the leading cause of death for pregnant women is

homicide, Giacomi noted that women seeking advice within their faith

community are often presented with advice such as, “Your husband is

head of the house...do what he tells you and he won’t have to become

violent,” or “All of us suffer... [God] won’t give you more than you

can bear.”

In the Christian faith, it is advice formed from a reading of

Scripture that sees women and children as subject to men and violence

as an extension of that subjection.

It looks at Genesis 2:22, “Then the rib which the Lord God had

taken from man, He made into a woman,” and Ephesians 5:22 “Wives

submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” and sees women as

inferior to men and subservient to them.

While it passes over Genesis 3:18, which says, “I [the Lord God]

will make him a helper comparable to him,” and stops short of

Ephesians 28 and 29, “So husbands ought to love their own wives as

their own bodies...for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes

and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.”

Woman, like man, is made in the image of God. “God created man in

his own image in the image of God He created him: male and female He

created them.” Genesis 1:27

But the Christian faith is far from alone in turning a blind eye

to domestic violence. FindtheGood.org, with its mission to provide a

positive path to end the violence says, “We are tempted to say ‘Good

(insert faith/denomination here) don’t have this problem.’” But in

all faith traditions, many do.

FindtheGood.org suggests action steps and resources on how faith

communities of all kinds can better deal with domestic violence with

compassion, intelligence and justice.

If your local faith community has programs or resources that

address this issue, I’d really like you to let me know.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].