A sex offender should find no refuge in his kippah
Op-ed: Religious practice involves a great deal of self-discipline and setting of boundaries. Impulse-control and restraint are religious values. So shouldn’t we expect religious people to behave better when it comes to sexual offenses?
The kippah on his head jumps out at me, every time I read an update on the case.
Whether in uniform, or just shirtsleeves, the photo of Ofek Buchris, a recently retired brigadier-general charged with rape (later dropped) and other sex crimes, always shows him wearing a kippah.
Religion has a great deal of interest in sex. Sexual morality is preached, and family purity practiced. Nevertheless, anyone who has been awake in the 21st century knows that religion doesn’t prevent sex crimes. In fact, religious institutions can be particularly comfortable places for a sexual predator. Religious sex offenders are everywhere:
In America, a prominent Orthodox rabbi is serving a sentence in a Washington, DC jail for voyeurism at the mikveh. In Australia, the Orthodox and Chabad communities in Melbourne and Sydney were torn apart by child molestation in schools and efforts to cover up those crimes. Here in Israel, an aged Breslov Hasidic leader is serving a prison sentence in Jerusalem for assault and indecent acts. And a Gush Etzion leader recently resigned under pressure from the sexual harassment charges against him.
Religious practice involves a great deal of self-discipline and setting of boundaries. Impulse-control and restraint are religious values. So shouldn’t we expect religious people to behave better when it comes to sexual offenses? Is no one immune?
The answer is no, no one is immune, because sexual offenses are not about sex. They are about power. Religious sex offenders are driven by the same motivation that drives most sex crimes. Power. And entitlement.
US President-elect Donald Trump famously expressed the sex offender’s point of view when he said, “I just start kissing them. …. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
There you have it: Power, control and entitlement.
Rapist or sexual harasser, the sex offender wants to control and manipulate his (and more rarely, her) victim. Religion offers no protection from the desire to dominate or from the sense of entitlement to act on that desire. In fact, some characteristics of the religious community facilitate those desires. Like the military, the religious community is hierarchical and authority-based. The overvaluing of respect for authority enables the abuse of that authority.
A sex offender teacher in a yeshiva, officer in the military, or rabbi in a community wears a mantle of authority and influence, and good will that deceives victims and bystanders alike. He is a leader, the rest of us are followers who depend on his success. We are not naturally inclined to be suspicious of his actions. We trust him, and thus are easily deceived. His victims are not of equal status. The predator perceives the victim as vulnerable, and therefore easily intimidated or coerced.
A powerful part of the sex offender dynamic is his confidence that he won’t suffer consequences.
Until very recently, in the religious community that was true. But that is changing.
I applaud the religious community for their efforts to overcome the shroud of shame that surrounds these crimes and replace it with justice. A variety of different approaches have begun, and no doubt more will follow.
Manny Waks turned the trauma of his own childhood sex abuse in Melbourne into Kol V’Oz, an umbrella organization for institutions worldwide dealing child sexual abuse in the Jewish community. On a local level, the Israeli Takana forum works to remove sexual harassers from their position, providing an important service to the victim who would not take her (or his) complaint to the police.
Working both locally and internationally, Tahel –The Crisis Center for Religious Women and Children – made public the issue of abuse in the religious community by spearheading the first international conference on domestic and sexual abuse. That 2014 conference gathered people from all parts of the Orthodox and Haredi communities to bring the issue out in the open. It was a breakthrough.
Every time a powerful person is publicly tried and sent to jail for a sex offense, a victim is empowered. Every religious sexual predator removed from our midst is a blessing.
A sex offender should find no refuge in his kippah.
