I was assaulted on July 25th, 2010.
The man who beat me up was my husband, your son-in-law, your brother-in-law, and your nephew-in-law. And you have him living with you. You took him in, and left me, broken and bleeding and alone.
I continuously use the repetition of the words "in law" because he is not family, though quickly became family while I became more and more lost.
People look at orthodox or observant Judaism as a beacon, something that should be held to a higher standard. The concept of "those things don't happen where we are" applies directly to where we are. Yet, there I was, lying broken and bleeding on my kitchen floor, screaming for the police department to come save me from the man, whom I had thought was going to kill me in front of my then 8 year old daughter.
In some way, I wasn't surprised. The calm prior to the storm had been building for some time. I knew he had pulled away from me, though I wasn't sure where he had pulled away to. I knew that help, at least for me, was not forthcoming, and that this battle, to whereever it was going to lead, was going to be one that I would more than likely be fighting on my own.
Depression became a constant companion. I knew there were others like me out there. But others truly like me, there weren't.
People from the family that I come from, from the prominence of the level of religious observance and political wherewithal that my family held, do not get depressed.. and certainly do not have divorce in their family...And this would have been my second.
As it was, I was broken. A failure to the name. I couldn't have "good healthy" children. My pregnencies were riddled with miscarriages, another burden of shame, and people were afraid to have me discuss anything of those sorts too.
Almost as though my failures as a wife and as a parent would be contaigious.
And yet, here I lie... broken, and bleeding.
When the police arrived, the whispers started... I must have done something, because the quiet nonassuming man that people had come to know would never have raised a hand towards me. And yet, the bleeding and bruising was on me.
My father did not come.
My mother did not come.
My brothers did not come.
Rather, my uncle came, in a way, to add more shame to my already failing sense of falling, and I threw him out of my home.
The police report offered little balm to an already ripped and bleeding wound. He admitted drinking, though his version of the report is barely coherent. Charges were not filed because of who my family was, shamefully, I allowed them to coerce me into doing what even I knew was wrong. It was the last time I would allow that to occur.
Here begins letters to a broken family. Letters that I wrote over the past year and then some, as the journey that I take, discovering who I am, as a Jew, being born a Jew, and knowing that I will die as a Jew, but not knowing if I wish to live as a Jew after being fully cognizant of how the Orthodox Rabbinic Jewish community runs rampant over it's women...
Stand silent no more do I...
Dear Abba,...
