Dear Roman Polanski,

So, I heard about that whole "you being arrested in Switzerland" thing. I know you're really suffering right now from all the indignities of having to be in prison for a crime you confessed to committing, but it's really sweet of all your celebrity friends to take time out of their busy avoiding-the-paparazzi-on-Robertson-Boulevard schedules to sign petitions insisting that you be released. A lot of what they say is true: The Pianist and Rosemary's Baby were great films. You've given a lot to the world through your art. However, in addition to directing some of the most legendary films in Hollywood history, you also raped and sodomized a thirteen-year-old girl. I don't even think we need to bother with that "allegedly" part, since you pleaded guilty to the crime just before you left the country and settled into a non-exile exile in the country of your birth, France.

I understand that you've been through a lot, Roman. You managed to escape from the Krakow Ghetto as a child. You lost your mother and many other family members in the Holocaust. Once you managed to achieve success in Hollywood, your pregnant wife Sharon Tate was randomly and cruelly murdered by members of Charles Manson's cult. No one would begrudge you retiring from the business, living out the rest of your life in a quiet country house and becoming a hermit of Salinger-like proportions. No one would judge you for getting lots of therapy to work through the years of hardship and trauma that you endured. But rather than turn inward or find a positive way to channel your pain into art, you chose to project your hurt onto someone else. You drugged and raped a girl who was barely into her teens.

Surviving the Holocaust does not give you permission to rape someone. I don't want to diminish what you or anyone else went through during that horrible time in our world's history, but by sexually brutalizing this young girl you have passed cruelty and hurt down to another innocent person who did not deserve it. Look at all the people - Elie Wiesel is an obvious example - who have used their experiences during the Shoah as inspiration to work for peace and to advocate for other communities facing genocide. You could have risen above what happened to you and become a better person, but you chose not to. Having lived a hard life does not make what you did any more OK. Being famous does not make it OK. Being beloved by celebrities does not make it OK. Being an Oscar winner does not make it OK.

Yom Kippur has already passed, Roman. But it's not too late to atone for what you did.

Phyllis Chesler prepared this D'var Torah for the Yavne Minyan, an Orthodox, egalitarian minyan which meets once a month on the Upper East Side, and she delivered it on Shabbat, Dec 13, 2008.

Good Shabbos everyone.

I want to focus on five words in this parasha: "Vayomru: Hakizonah yaaseh et ahotaynu?"  (Bereshit 34:31). This is what Shimon and Levi tell their distraught and disapproving father Ya'akov after they have rescued Dina by destroying the city of Shechem--the guilty and the innocent alike--all because its prince has kidnapped and raped their sister Dina. I translate their brief but fiery words this way: Shall we stand idly by while our sister is treated like a prostitute?

It is a question that stands for all time. The question is still here, it awaits an answer from each generation. Shall we stand idly by as women are raped-- even as we judge Shimon and Levi harshly for engaging in "overkill"? Do we stand idly by as women are forced into prostitution by dire poverty and abuse, or, like Dina, are kidnapped, forced into marriages against their will, trafficked to foreign countries and chained to brothel walls?

Am I my sisters' keeper? "Hashomer ahi/ahotee anochi?" In a sense, Shimon and Levi have answered God's question in a way far different than Cain once did.

Rape remains epidemic in our world today. Here on the Upper East Side, in other neighborhoods, and on every continent. South Africa, liberated from apartheid, has the world's highest rate of sexual violence towards women. In places like Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Congo, Darfur, and Rwanda, rape has become a weapon of war, not merely a spoil of war. I view the repeated public gang-raping of female children and women in these and other war zones as "gender cleansing." The international legal community has even decided that such rapes are "war crimes."

Still, we have not been able to do much to stop such rapes or to bring justice to the victims.     

Granted: Shimon and Levi did a terrible thing, a "Ya'aakovianly," tricky thing and yet, most amazingly, they did not kill their sister because she had dishonored her family, had gone out, presumably alone (from which the Sages derive that no Jew should go out alone in a potentially dangerous neighborhood)--and yet Dina did what her great-grandfather Avraham, her grandmother Rivka, and her own mother Leah did: she comes from a long line of "Tay-tzaers."   

Yes--and incredibly, Shimon and Levi did not kill the "defiled" Dina; they killed Dina's rapist instead--and, for good measure, his entire male family!

As we know, even today, honor killings are rampant in the Middle East and South Asia, mainly among Muslims, and to a lesser extent, among Hindus and Sikhs. This odious custom has increasingly penetrated the West.  I'm about to publish an academic paper about it. But here, early on in the Torah, when polygamy, cousin marriage, child marriage, arranged marriage, concubinage, prostitution, and human slavery are taken for granted--this is a rather remarkable thing for Shimon and Levi to have done. Is it not? 

Women were once expected to marry their rapists. Dina's brothers do not force her to marry Shechem. Once, women were advised to "keep quiet" about being raped. Shimon and Levi do not keep quiet about their sister's rape; it is their stated reason for destroying Shechem. Although progress has been made, in our time, when women attempted to have their rapists prosecuted, they were often dis-believed and not treated humanely in the courtroom, where most victims were "raped" again, this time legally. Dina is neither challenged nor disbelieved.   

But Dina does remain silent, "hidden" from us. Indeed, according to Nachmanides, the Ramban, the brothers do not let Dina out again, they keep her hidden because she has been "defiled." "Hidden," just as the midrash tells us she was hidden by her father Ya'akov in order to prevent Esav from seeing her and wanting to wed her. Some say that Dina withheld is what led to Ya'akov's troubles, beginning with Dina's rape. But Leah, who arguably "belonged" to Esav, the older of her first cousins, wept her eyes out until they became "rakot," gentle, tender, wept in fear that she would have to marry Esav.

But why? Esav is by far a better son to his parents than Ya'akov ever was. Esav stays close to home and does what his parents want. Ya'akov leaves--true, he does what his mother Rivka privately tells him to do--but that means leaving home, lech lecha-ing, moving on, choosing public and religious duty over family responsibility. 

Does Dina's brothers' action, variously described as "overkill," "terrorist-like," "heartless," "dangerous," and "vengeful," make Dina whole? 

Ellen Frankel, in The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman's Commentary on the Torah, presents Dina as a Talmudic commentator. "Rav" Dina notes that "[My brothers] recognized that honor stolen can never be recouped: Hamor's proposed payment transformed rape into prostitution. The only compensation they [Shimon and Levi] would accept was vengeance. But neither act could compensate me for what I had lost."  

What would? As most feminist therapists know, a rape victim does not "heal" by "forgiving" her attacker. Forgiveness as a path to wholeness is a misguided notion in cases of rape, incest or battery. A rush to forgive often means that the victim is unable or unwilling to acknowledge exactly what has happened, or that she has been harmed by it.  Without such acknowledgement one cannot begin the arduous and painful work of healing. In any event, a private, psychological, individual, act of forgiveness does not constitute justice, nor can it prevent the forgiver or others from suffering a similar fate at the hands of the unjudged, unpunished rapist, his city, and his culture. 

Many survivors of rape and torture say that the most lasting harm resides not only in the atrocity itself, but also in how others either dealt with it or failed to do so. Survivors are haunted by those who heard the screams but turned their backs, blamed the victim, who preached against revenge, but envisioned no justice.  As Judy Herman has written: "It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering."

Please understand: The Torah and Talmud's position on rape is complicated, contradictory and, from my point of view, quite misogynistic e.g. raping a married woman is a capital crime since she is another man's "property;" but, the rape of a single, un-betrothed woman sentences her rapist to a lifetime of marriage to her unless she won't have him. He must still pay her father a monetary fine.

Therefore, what Shimon and Levi did was extraordinary both for their time, and for the geographical region. It still is today. What can possibly explain what they did?  

They explain it this way: Rape is not done amongst us. "V'cayn lo ya-aseh." It is a sin, an abomination in Yisrael: "Kee nevalah B'Yisrael." 

Rashi tells us that the nations of the world feared "incest," or other "sexual crimes" as a result of the Flood. I totally agree. Quite simply, the brothers feared that God might destroy the world again because of male sexual violence. They destroyed Shechem in order to defend God's honor and to protect humanity.

I do not agree with the many honorable feminists who believe that Dina's brothers ruined it for her, that she really loved Shechem, that he's a symbol of Palestinian or pagan purity. If Dina really loved Shechem, why would Shechem need to "talk to her heart," (v'yidabayer al lev hanaarah")? Shechem only did so after he "took" (va'yikach otah), slept with, (yishkav otah) and tormented or humbled (vaya-aneyhaa) her.  Only after all this did Shechem's "soul cleave" to her (va'tidbak nafsho), and "he loved the young girl" (va'yeahav et hanara). 

Where else do we hear the phrase: "He talked to her heart?" 

In Shoftim, at a time when Israel has no king, we have another example of a man who is described with the exact same words. A concubine (pilegesh) has run away from her master/husband. Perhaps he has abused her. Maybe she just missed her father at home. In any event, this master/husband of the unnamed pilegesh also "yadabayer al lebah," he sweet talks her to leave her father's home in Bethlehem, in the territory of Yehudah.  

As we know, her fate is an awful one. As they journey, night falls, and a man offers the couple hospitality for the night. A Sodom and Gomorrah-like male mob demands the man as their sexual sacrifice.  The master/husband does not sacrifice himself but rather gives his pelegesh over in Givha to be gang-raped to death. Obtaining justice in her case, does not involve the destruction of pagan Shechem; it involves the near destruction of the entire tribe of Binyamin. 

Just because a man says he lusts for or even "loves" a woman whom he takes by force does not mean that he really does so or that his "love-lust" will last or that the story will end well.

In Shmuel Bet, we read that Amnon desired his half sister Tamar. He asks her to sleep with him. Tamar echoes exactly what Shimon and Levi say: "This is not done in Yisrael, don't commit this abomination." Kee lo ya-aseh kayn b'Yisrael, al ta-aseh et ha'navalah hazot." She tells him to go to their father King David and ask for her hand in marriage. Instead, like Shechem, Amnon humbled, tormented, and forced Tamar to sleep with him. "Viyaaneyha v'yishcav otah." Unlike Shechem, immediately thereafter Amnon's lust turns to hate. This single act of rape, which is Tamar's undoing, has dire consequences. Avshalom, Tamar's brother, kills Amnon, David their father mourns, Avshalom foments a rebellion against King David and is himself eventually killed.

The sexual mistreatment of Tamar destroys her, King David's family, and nearly leads to David's downfall. 

Perhaps we might say: In all three instances, the mistreatment of a single woman led to a major catastrophe.

None of this is surprising. God strongly disapproves of rape. It is the reason that God decided to destroy the world with a flood. Remember the language. Just as Shechem took Dina (vayikach otah), in Bereshit 6:2, the sons of God "took (vayyikhu) any woman, any daughter of man, they so chose.( Bereshit 6:2).Widespread, indiscriminate rape. Almost immediately, God states: "My spirit will not dwell within or wrestle against myself with humanity forever because man is only flesh and blood: "Lo yadun ruhi b'adam liolam b'shagam hu basar." (Bereshit 6:3).

Lo yadun ruhi... Din, judgment, law, Dina's very name reminds us that God finds rape repugnant.  Rape is not only a crime against humanity; it is also a crime against God. Perhaps this is the reason that God ensures that none of the other pagan cities or tribes rise up against Ya'akov. They suffer no repercussions for their destruction of Shechem. "And they journeyed and a terror/fear of God was upon the cities that surrounded them and they did not pursue the sons of Ya'akov." Va-yisahoo v'yihee hetat elohim al ha'arim asher svevotahem v'lo radfu aharei bnai Ya'akov."

Thus, we learn that rape is forbidden. From this we may also conclude that we are obligated to rescue, comfort and obtain justice for a rape victim. Troublingly, Ya'akov, who suffers the loss of Yoseph and the potential loss of Binyamin, is not seen weeping for or even talking to Dina. She remains "hidden," her father remains "silent." Surely, we are obliged to bring up our sons so that they do not become rapists or bystanders, nor should our daughters ever blame or shun a rape victim.   

In Dina's story, her brothers do not blame her. They rescue her.  May God grant each and every one of us the power to do likewise.  

Good Shabbos.

Israel has got a prime minister with an approval rating in the single digits and a rapist for a president. And we think we've got it bad over here. The J-Post:

According to the deal signed at Beit Hanassi, the president will neither serve jail time nor carry out community service. Instead, the State Prosecutor's Office will ask the court to give Katsav a suspended sentence if he resigns from office within 48 hours. Katsav's will also be forced to pay financial compensation to his victims.

A good friend of mine e-mailed me a link to a story in the Foreign Policy blog about a new device being used to fight rape in South Africa. It’s called the Rapex.
My, my: What Sharp Teeth You Have

The rapex, shaped like a female condom, is worn internally and equipped with 25 teeth in its lining. The razor-sharp teeth fasten on the attacker's penis if he attempts penetration. Since the device does no lasting damage to the attacker, it is completely legal and will sell for 1 Rand (around 14 cents) when it hits stores. The majority of women surveyed about the device said they would be willing to use it.

The inventor of Rapex, South African Sonette Ehler, a former medical technician, got the idea when a traumatized rape victim lamented to her, "If only I had teeth down there."

Later in the article there’s discussion of Rapex detractors who say:

The idea places the burden of stopping rape on the victims rather than the perpetrators. But the reality, according to Ehler, is that "[n]obody can make you safe except you." Given that South Africa has the highest per capita rate of rape of any country in the world, at a reported 119 per 100,000 people (which translates to around 1.7 million women raped each year), she may have a compelling argument.

I’m looking into what, precisely, Jewish law would have to say about something like this. As a rule, rape is more widely defined in Jewish law than it is by the American legal system. A woman is usually presumed not to have consented to the intercourse even if she enjoyed it, and even if she consented after the sexual act began and declined a rescue. Rape within marriage is also halachically recognized and prohibited, largely because sex within marriage is considered the woman’s right, not the man’s.

The question becomes: how offensive can we be in our defense against rape?

I’m going to ask some rabbinic authorities, but I suspect one of them will quote Deuteronomy 22, which is the chapter where rape is discussed and prohibited, and the chapter with the famous ruling that requires a fence built around the roof of a new house to ensure that no one falls off. This is the source for a vast number of protective measures we take both physically and spiritually. The key is only to build fences around roofs where someone is likely to go wandering and take a fall. South Africa is clearly a place where one runs a great risk of being raped. But what about Nashville, or Chicago, or New York, or Jerusalem?

In the US, a study conducted by the Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 1 in 6 women is the victim of attempted or completed rape. 1 In 33 men have experienced sexual assault. (View more statistics here).

Those numbers are pretty high, but are they high enough that I want to run out and buy a Rapex? Not really. The idea of walking around with that thing in is both yucky and sad. And while I’m reassured that it exists, and I’m glad to see women are building their own fences in the face of real threats, this fence doesn’t seem like the most effective or practical device. Anyone have a brilliant idea that doesn’t involve sticking a toothy device into a poor girl’s vajayjay?

An Australian Anarchist Jew responds to a recent scenario given by a Rape Crisis Center to help victims identify whether or not they've been assaulted and what constitutes rape:

Is this rape?

Jo is a Year 13 Student at XX High School. She is at a party on a Saturday night. Jared is going to be there and she’s been trying to hook up with him for awhile. She’s wearing a short skirt, boots, and a low cut top –she’s sure to catch his attention –She looks great. Jo and her friends drink a few bottles of wine before they get to the party and she feels pretty drunk by the time they arrive. At the party she starts talking with Jared, he asks if she wants to go up to one of the bedrooms –they walk up the stairs followed by comments from Jared’s mates as they close the door.

In the room they start kissing, and Jared is putting his hands up her top and down her pants, she likes it and starts touching Jared. Jared then takes off his pants and hers. Jo starts to feel uncomfortable and pulls back a bit, and pulls her underwear back up. She doesn’t want to have sex with Jared but doesn’t know how to stop it. Everyone at the party thinks they’re having sex, and she doesn’t want Jared to think she’s tight. Jared pulls her knickers back down and they have sex.

Anarchia cites comments for the above post. Some of which, I imagine are in line with the Duke University Lacrosse Team's school of sexual conduct.

Below are some of the less novel ones:

While Jared needs to control himself as a human being is capable of ,Jo needs to realise and learn that she is the main cause of the situation she finds herself in and that its up to her to not put herself in these situations by giving cared the undoubted come on.Maybe if women were made aware earlier in life just how strong the male sexual urge really was they would be better prepared to deal with it and not find out the hard way… Mothers educate your daughters…

This quite clearly is not rape. Her consent was letting her underwear be removed for a second time and having sex without protest.

… Men are not mind readers. I agree this though is a very good example, not only for the definition of rape but why some people are too immature to put themselves in the position where they are procuring sex, which Jo quite clearly is.

And on that note, chicas be careful out there this weekend. Keep your panties on at all times. Stay away from those lecherous guys who are just being guys, and above all, abstain from alcohol, you big slutty whores.

Jewschool is all over the JTA feature about sex scandals in our tribe. And if this is the first you’re hearing about it, you must be living under a rock (though you shouldn’t fret too much, because there are lots of Jews living under that rock with you).

We tend to have this notion that Jews don’t do things like rape and batter. We think that rabbis don’t take advantage of the power they hold, or abuse the respect of their congregants. Certainly rabbis don’t have sex with children!

Ummmm…. Yeah.

Why is that? How could we possibly think we aren’t out there doing the same awful shit other people are doing?

Because we’re CHOSEN? Because we’re LAWYERS and DOCTORS?

Jews make it a point (much like the Catholic Church) not to “air dirty laundry in public”. We keep quiet and circle the wagons when our fellow tribe-members do nasty things.

Funny… since technically our religion is very clear on, say, how rape is defined:

Marital sex is regarded as the woman's right, and not the man's. Men do not have the right to beat or mistreat their wives, a right that was recognized by law in many Western countries until a few hundred years ago. In cases of rape, a woman is generally presumed not to have consented to the intercourse, even if she enjoyed it, even if she consented after the sexual act began and declined a rescue! This is in sharp contrast to American society, where even today rape victims often have to overcome public suspicion that they "asked for it" or "wanted it." Traditional Judaism recognizes that forced sexual relations within the context of marriage are rape and are not permitted; in many states in America, rape within marriage is still not a criminal act.

Which makes a lot of Jewish men (and some I’ve known) rapists.

I really know nothing about this subject, though I think we all need to learn about it. What our leaders are doing… as an example of what our tribe is doing. And what our tradition has to say about it. This is a GREAT resource if you want to know more.