That Jews are immune to domestic violence has long been a cultural misperception. Statistics indicate that the issue is no more or less prevalent in the Jewish community, or any segment of it, than in the general community.
However, American women who are victims of domestic abuse are increasingly aware of the social service agencies that offer professional support — should they want it.
But immigrant women, whose cultures often make them even more reluctant to admit that there is a problem, may have a limited awareness of the rights of victims or where to turn for help.
To meet that challenge, Jewish Family Services has received a $35,000 grant from the Family Violence Prevention and Services Program in the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The funding will help develop a public information/community awareness campaign for the prevention of family violence in the Russian immigrant community.
In addition, JFS received a $6,000 grant from the Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. These funds will be used to buy a beeper for a Russian speaker to carry as a contact person for the CHAI (domestic abuse) Helpline; pay for Russian-speaking treatment providers as needed; provide training in this field; and purchase books to be read to pre-schoolers at the Jewish Family Services Day Care Center on conflict resolution as an early prevention effort.
“We’ve been interested in this issue for a long time,” said Hirsh Larkey, JFS clinical social worker who is serving as project coordinator. He added that while a number of Milwaukee agencies do address domestic violence in the general community, none of them is currently working with the Russian population and no resource materials are available in Russian.
In southeastern Wisconsin, JFS has resettled over 4,300 Russian immigrants.
“As this population moves beyond its initial resettlement process, social problems such as family violence and conflict can begin to surface. These problems may be triggered by employment issues, loss of status, language barriers and cultural gaps between parents and children,” Larkey said.
He added, “There are several unique challenges in dealing with this population. Victims may not be familiar with U.S. laws. Also, psychotherapy as we know it is non-existent in the former Soviet Union, and social workers were agents of the state and often mistrusted. In addition, there is a cultural restraint in discussing family matters in public. Seeking professional help was often viewed as a sign of weakness or even mental illness.”
Irina Arndt, who immigrated to Milwaukee in 1998 from the FSU, has been hired as a community outreach specialist. Previously, she has been a job developer with JFS’ Services to Russian Speakers and Refugees Department.
She agreed with Larkey that in Russia such issues were “handled within the family. People did not look outside the family for help. I know first-hand that the Russian community is very tightly knit.”
Getting the word out
Larkey said one goal of the campaign is to network and interface with established members in the Russian community who have regular contact with new Americans, such as teachers, salespeople, manicurists, beauticians and health care providers. This effort will both heighten awareness of the problem as well as enable distribution of materials in Russian about shelters, telephone hot lines and social service agencies.
“We want to let people know there is help out there,” said Arndt. “In addition to recruiting liaisons from social service, law enforcement and health care agencies to distribute materials about available options, we want to reach out to those in the Russian community who can help us get the word out. ”
She said she has contacted all of the local agencies that deal with or come into contact with abusers. They all reported that they are not seeing any Russian clients. “But, we hear through the grapevine that domestic violence exists and fear that the frequency of incidence is highly underreported,” Arndt said.
Larkey noted that on occasion he has received a call from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office or from a probation officer concerning a Russian-speaking batterer. “It’s customary in Wisconsin for batterers to be referred for counseling, but it’s a problem to put someone into a group if they don’t speak English. At this point, that’s the only way we’ve heard about the issue,” he said.
For help in developing a campaign, Larkey and Arndt traveled to Cleveland to meet with representatives of the JFS there, which launched Project Chai five years ago.
“While the Cleveland program targets both new American and Orthodox women, we found that it could serve as a good prototype for us,” Larkey said.
According to Brynna Fish, coordinator of the Cleveland program, “It took a couple of years to build the confidence in such a program before people were willing to come forward. We started out slow with no calls at all for the first six to eight months.
“We began as an outreach effort to all Jewish women in 1996. Sometime later, we added Russian, Othodox and elderly women as specialty groups.”
She believes the key to success is “repetition.” “We did a lot of public relations work, running ads in Russian newspapers and holding little gatherings for women. In general, it takes a long time for women to gather the courage to admit there is a problem. For Russian women, there are even more barriers to overcome, so the service needs to be specialized.”
Arndt agrees that getting abused women to come forward will be difficult. “In order to educate Russian immigrant women, we plan to hold some teas [as in Cleveland] and even pay them a nominal fee to attend. If we can get a group of women together to talk and interact, maybe they will be willing to discuss these issues. Using social vehicles to bring people together has worked in Cleveland and in Sacramento, Calif.”
Larkey and Arndt are exploring the possibility of working with employers of Russian-Jewish women to insert a resource guide into the paycheck envelopes of female employees and include a chapter on domestic violence in employee manuals. Another idea is to leave materials in locker rooms or rest rooms that are frequented by Russian women.
They are aware of the work CHAI has been doing in Milwaukee to raise awareness of and prevent domestic violence in the American Jewish community. Larkey said that “there will be some cooperation and resource sharing between these separate programs.”
Arndt added, “This project may take a generation to catch on, but I think it’s important to keep moving forward. We’re in the beginning stage and I’m learning, too, how other agencies handle the issue.”
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