Recently, JDCC invited Ruth Neal to speak about abuse within the Jewish community in general. Abuse is a difficult subject to deal with for many reasons.
Abuse takes various forms.
It can be sexual, physical, emotional, or verbal. Ninety-five percent of abuse is against women, and the other five percent is against men. Abuse generally means that someone is using their power to control another person or that a person is afraid of someone in the environment because of the consequences if the other person gets angry. Ruth pointed out that it is interesting to note that there are two main differences with abuse in the Jewish community compared to the general population. The other difference is that Jewish women will stay in an abusive environment longer than the women in the general population.