Just Leading

Sustaining Long-term Change with Shana Aaronson

Episode Summary

How can we turn landmark moments into long-term progress? Shana Aaronson is the Executive Director of Magen for Jewish Communities, an Israel-based non-profit providing advocacy, awareness, and support around sexual abuse. She and her team do vital work that requires patience and resilience. Shana sits down with Elana to share her vision of community safety and the promising turning points she’s seen over the last couple of years. Content warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual abuse.

Episode Notes

How can we turn landmark moments into long-term progress? Shana Aaronson is the Executive Director of Magen for Jewish Communities, an Israel-based non-profit providing advocacy, awareness, and support around sexual abuse. She and her team do vital work that requires patience and resilience. Shana sits down with Elana to share her vision of community safety and the promising turning points she’s seen over the last couple of years. Content warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual abuse.

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Episode Transcription

Content warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual abuse.

(Theme Music)

[00:00:00] Elana Wien: Hi, I'm Elana Wien and you're listening to Just Leading, where we're thinking differently about leadership within and beyond the Jewish world. In each episode, we're talking to people who are leading through the complex challenges of today to understand how we can build a better future. 

[00:00:18] Shana Aaronson: There are certainly moments or situations where there is something that is somewhat earth shattering, but it's a buildup of many profound moments.

[00:00:29] Elana Wien: You just heard the voice of Shana Aaronson. As the executive director of Israel based non-profit. Magen for Jewish Communities, Shana does the incredibly important work of providing education, support and advocacy around sexual abuse and its effects on individuals, families, and communities. I was so excited to speak with her to learn more about how her work has evolved to meet the moment. Let's dive in.

Welcome Shana. I'm so excited to have Shana Aaronson with me today for this session of Just Leading. 

[00:01:04] Shana Aaronson: Thanks so much for having me. 

[00:01:05] Elana Wien: Welcome. So our listeners, we have folks both in the United States and around the world, we have folks that are Jewish and not Jewish. So would love to just start by hearing a little bit about where you are based and what keeps you busy these days.

[00:01:21] Shana Aaronson: Absolutely. Okay. Yes. Unfortunately, a lot. I am the executive director of Magen for Jewish Communities, which is an Israeli based nonprofit organization that deals with sexual abuse, primarily in the ultra Orthodox community. I say primarily because so many people reach out to us really from all different communities at this point, we obviously do not ever turn anyone away and we offer a whole bunch of different educational and awareness programs for parents, for educators, we create a lot of different educational content and resources. We have a mental health department, social workers that offer support. You know, we work with clinics and mental health centers all over the country, as well as we run a lot of different support groups for victims, as well as for moms of victims, and we're going to be starting one shortly for partners of victims.

And we currently have one. Now that is for ex wives of abusers and so that's the mental health side of things. And then we have our advocacy and investigation department, which offers support to victims of sexual abuse in navigating the law enforcement process, the court process. And we also do some private investigation work in cooperation with law enforcement and with media.

So that is what we're busy with. 

[00:02:35] Elana Wien: So I have to say of all the leaders I reached out to, to connect for the podcast. I had a unusual experience when we were setting the session up and we needed to reschedule. I'd love if, if you remember what it was that came up for you, that was the reason why we needed to reschedule the recording.

[00:02:52] Shana Aaronson: I recall that I was called to the police. I mean, we're always at any given time working on a number of different cases with law enforcement over the last couple of months, there were a couple of incidents where I had to sort of drop everything and run to the police station because of the case that was sort of very pressing; something going on right now.

[00:03:07] Elana Wien: It seems like there's that element of expecting the unexpected is built into the kind of work that you're doing. How do you handle that? How do you approach that to make sure you're taking care of yourself and that you're able to be as effective as you want to be.

[00:03:20] Shana Aaronson: I think that the first thing is when you're working with any community that is insular, there are so many sensitivities and this is the community that I grew up in. I'm certainly more than a little familiar with it to a great degree, I am still in it. And even with all of that said that you need to really have, I have found, like just a tremendous amount of humility and willingness to, to say that not everybody is going to think the same way as me and there are going to be people that are not comfortable with my perspective on things and to find a line between where are our red lines of just zero tolerance?

And then where are the things, where are the issues where we're going to be, you know, willing to compromise on things that might personally be incredibly off-putting to me, that's, that's a very mild way of putting it, very upsetting to me, but if I'm able to take myself out of it and look at, okay, what is the greater good of this goal that I'm trying to accomplish?

What is going to protect more children and vulnerable people in this community? You know, especially these days, it's so easy to yell off into the echo chamber of my own social media following. Whereas the actual clients that I'm trying to serve are not necessarily the people following me on Facebook.

And they might find so many of the ways that I choose to live my life distasteful and unacceptable. So really being willing to like take yourself out of it. But at the same time, not compromise, you know, we all have to have our own personal red lines of things that we won't tolerate and things that are unacceptable.

And just finding that balance, that really has been probably one of the most important things. And the other is patience because these cases take so long. I can't even, I, at this point I've been doing this work for a little more than eight years. When I first started, I remember there, there were so many survivors that I spoke to over the years, like early on that would say things like, like, there's no way I'm ever going to go to the police and there's no way I could never do X. There's no way I could ever confront my abuser. There's no way I could ever tell my parents about the abuse. And then when you actually go down the line a couple of years later after there's been therapy and there's been support and the world has changed, thank God, in some ways for the better. You find that things change. That doesn't mean that what people said at the time wasn't true. That was absolutely their truth as they were at that time. But human beings are capable of unbelievable, enormous healing and growth in so many different ways. So now I have this benefit of hindsight, which I did not have when I started out of course, of seeing that people, you know, four years down the line, five years down the line, six years down the line the whole picture changes and I've got like, I have a case in court right now. The victim actually just texted me a couple of hours ago that he has a meeting with the prosecutor. And this was the case that I initially brought this, well, then he was a boy to the police when he was 13 years old. And then the case was closed. The prosecutor's office felt that there was not enough evidence. He was too young and it was so infuriating at the time, because we had spent so long on this abuser, like he's a dangerous man and he's just still out there and he's, we know he's still targeting vulnerable boys.

Like we know this and the leadership of the community is aware of it. And it's so upsetting. And then a couple of years ago, about a year and a half ago, another victim reached out and then another victim reached out. And so we went back to the first victim. We were able to put it all together and now there's a case, and he's going to be indicted next week, but that's something that took six years.

He's now, the original victim is 19 turning 20. If you would've told me that this was something that could have like- that would maybe happen. I would've just been like, no, unfortunately like that's the end of it. So yeah, a lot of patience, sometimes things take time talking about decisions that affect people's lives in such profound and huge ways.

And that's a process. 

[00:06:57] Elana Wien: Absolutely.

(Music Transition)

[00:07:03] Elana Wien: So I'd love to hear a little bit about how you got started in this work. What's kind of the origin story? 

[00:07:07] Shana Aaronson: Oh boy. So the origin story for me, in, in, in sexual abuse advocacy is very much, it's a evolution. It was not something that I just decided to do or fell into right away. And it was very much a process.

I had an experience of sexual abuse as, as a child, although it took me until well into adulthood until after I had been doing this work for years to actually identify it as sexual abuse. I literally had been probably working in this field for like four years, at least until it suddenly occurred to me that if somebody called me describing that incident to me now, There would be zero question in my mind that was sexual abuse, but it had never even crossed my mind before that that had anything to do with anything.

So I wanted to work with at-risk teens. That was what I thought I was going to do with, I was in school when I was getting my first degree. I was focusing on, on addictions and at-risk behaviors and, and I was working in a program for, at risk teens. And - a residential program in Israel. And. I just kept seeing, I mean, you could not, you cannot avoid sexual abuse when you're working with, with at risk teens.

Like I once tried to do sort of a mental count and I'm pretty sure it was like 85%, if not more, it might've been more now that I'm thinking about it, of our students there had experienced either incest or rape or some kind of severe sexual trauma in their histories. And that was clearly like having such profound impacts on their lives. And it was something that I just couldn't avoid. And then that organization unfortunately closed down. And shortly after, when it closed down, I was actually pregnant with my youngest daughter. And so I thought I would take a break for a year. And then there was a very small, like local organization that had opened up near me that was dealing with child abuse and I offered to volunteer for them. Cause I just had some time while I was waiting to have my baby. And then I was basically head hunted to another organization where I worked for a couple of years that was doing specifically sexual abuse advocacy. And then basically for the last few years I've been running Magen.

(Music Transition)

[00:09:09] Elana Wien: How has this work looked different to you over the last couple of years? And where have you seen some bright spots? And also just curious your general sense, like, is there kind of firm, positive forward motion happening? Is it more ephemeral? What's your take on it? 

[00:09:25] Shana Aaronson: I really don't believe in watershed moments when it comes to this kind of, I guess social justice issue really. A few months ago now there was a case that broke in the media regarding an extremely popular children's author of books for the ultra Orthodox community, that he was a sexual predator and had abused initially the initial report, detailed abuse of four different people.

And then subsequently there were a total of 22 that we're aware of, and it was extremely shocking to most of the world. And what was really- what was unique about Walder and what made it so devastating and what made the shock so widespread is that his books were extremely popular. He was considered a trailblazer.

So this was a massive blow to like everyone. Like it was really shocking. A lot of people felt like, oh, well this is it. This is the breaking point. And I actually disagree in the idea that this was a watershed moment, because I think that what happens is that there are certainly moments or situations where there is something that is somewhat earth shattering, but it's a buildup of many profound moments that happened over the years that allowed this to happen.

I don't think this is the turning point. I think there has been a series of turning points, like a sort of we've been in evolution, this process, this transition as a community for a number of years now, and the Walder case just reflects that. I think that it's certainly, a situation like this can have a tremendous impact on many people and on, on a community as a whole, in so many different ways.

There have been positive movements. There are negative movements as far as how people responded and are still responding. But overall, I think it's just, it's obvious and clear to say that there is movement. That is no question and something like this, a situation like this, certainly catapults it. 

The question as always becomes, okay how do we translate that into the long-term change that victims need and that the community needs in order to better protect everyone? 

There was actually the same journalist that broke the Walder case. We had worked with them regarding the sexual abuse allegations against Meshi Zahav, who was the head of, uh ZAKA, which is the rescue organization in Israel.

It's one of the biggest emergency response organizations in Israel. And it was really devastating to many people because he was seen as like such a trailblazer. When that case broke, there was something that felt very different for us as an organization from Magen about the fact that there was a certain confidence that we saw after that, where victims felt like if you're willing to go up against him, because he is known and considered to be a very powerful person in Israel, you know, connected politically, law enforcement.

And if we were willing to go up against him, then they can trust us, even with some of the like really tricky and difficult cases. So I definitely did notice a rise in cases being reported of people that were the kinds of people that may be previously, the victims were afraid. Well, I don't want to go to an organization.

I don't know, like maybe the organization won't be able to handle this. This is, there's a potential for a lot of pushback here. So I think it did give some confidence in many victims who were previously afraid to be able to reach out that definitely made a change. And, and then Walder as well.

(Music Transition)

[00:13:15] Elana Wien: So how do you take care of yourself in all of this? Just from hearing you speak, there have been these tremendous strides forward. And so much of it is dependent on that trusting relationship that you've built and that your colleagues have built with the community and that ability to be responsive and to hold those complex stories and to really push forward, you know, you were sharing, you have the folks on Facebook that may be cheering you on, but the resistance that you can experience in your community. What are some of the ways that you work to take care of yourself and your own needs and energies in this complex time where so much is being asked of you as a leader?

[00:13:59] Shana Aaronson: There's obviously the question of self care, which is very important. I think that I can't claim to be great at it. I'm not, I won't wait to be a leader in self care. That's for sure. I certainly always have a lot to work on there, but it is something that I'm very conscious of. And I'm constantly trying to keep in the forefront of my mind when I feel like I'm burning out or going in that direction of, oh my gosh, I just can't hear this anymore. And what do I need to take care of myself? Can be okay myself and then also continue to run the organization, take care of whatever it is that I am responsible for. So that is something that's important to just always keep it to forefront of your mind, because I think it's about keeping your finger on the pulse for yourself of, you know, has this, if this has been a more difficult few months, I may need to do something else. There's no one size fits all or just one solution that's going to be okay, I'm doing my therapy and now I'm okay. 

And then there's the question of how do we take care of the community? And I think I've evolved as a person in terms of how, just for example, there for years, like we, all of us that have worked in the advocacy space, around sexual abuse in the ultra Orthodox Jewish community or in any insular community, there's always been this push that rabbis or clergy people shouldn't be the ones making decisions around abuse. And I absolutely still stand by that. We need to involve professionals in this, in the decision-making and in the supporting and in the guidance of how these cases work and you know how this goes. At the same time, I have evolved in my own appreciation for how important, the involvement of rabbis is. If you're really working within the ultra Orthodox community, again, it's easy to say, well, just don't involve rabbis. But if you're working with a family who involve their rabbi or their religious leaders in, in, in every aspect of their life, everything to start telling them, no, you shouldn't involve this person right now during this like unbelievably sensitive, painful time for your family.

It's it's not realistic. It's also not fair because you're cutting them off from somebody that potentially could be a tremendous support as well. And there absolutely is room and there should be room made and we should encourage there to be like that, that sort of appropriate role for clergy in, in this process of dealing with abuse.

And I have found over in the more recent years since I've started really leaning into that, where I've had situations of just unbelievable, really profound moments for victims. And that's something that I never would have even- because I think I was so busy focusing on the report to the police and you don't need permission from your rabbi to report to the police and rabbis shouldn't be intervening in legal processes, which is true.

All true. But at the same time, that doesn't mean we should cut them out from that like appropriate and necessary role that they do and should play. So that's been like again for myself and that obviously, and for the organization of evolving to what it means to truly advocate for victims of sexual abuse within the ultra Orthodox community.

That is a very big part of it without question. 

[00:16:52] Elana Wien: That's just so beautiful. I think that there's some really important work being done in the Jewish community and in other faith communities around restorative justice around repair and, and also just lifting up what real moral injury looks like, and that you have, you have the legal system, you have these different steps that are important, but that when someone has this experience, the way that it is really affecting their whole identity, including their spirituality and their faith, and they can be part of really affirming and supporting victim survivors as they're coming forward and they're putting their lives back together. So I think that's really, really a beautiful thing.

(Music Transition)

[00:17:40] Elana Wien: Well, I have really appreciated this conversation and I know that our listeners have as well, it's been a challenging couple of years, I think for all leaders. And I think for leaders, such as yourself that are really at the forefront in terms of addressing sexual abuse in the ultra Orthodox community, you're doing hard work every day and you already were doing it before there was a pandemic before there was the Walder case and all of these pieces. And so I think listeners can really take some inspiration from the ways in which you're pushing forward and where you're seeing those bright spots and also where you're staying really committed to long-term change. I would love to just hear a little bit about what's giving you hope right now.

[00:18:24] Shana Aaronson: Right now, I think I'm having a tremendous amount of hope just watching the, the process that so many of the victims that have reached out to us are, are going through how so many survivors are, are reaching out in a very different place than they were before. There's more of a sense that they understand that they have options.

Now they might not know what those options are. That's why they're reaching out to us, but they understand that they have options. They understand that there are people that will support them, maybe not everyone, but they know that the support is available and it's out there. I mean, they might not be ready to talk about it publicly, which is absolutely fine.

And they may believe that they'll never be ready to talk about it publicly, which is also fine, but they want, they want to talk to someone. They want to put it out there. And, and I think that's more than ever before. I always said that I would know that we were there again, not that- I don't plan to solve the issue of sexual abuse and rape have been around, unfortunately, since, basically since the dawn of mankind, as we know it. And I don't think that's going to go away anytime, you know, anytime soon or ever. And I don't like to promise things, that I can't deliver. I see there are organizations out there, like "we are going to stop sexual abuse." Really?

If you know how to do that, I will give you all my money. We should all be giving you all our money cause that should happen, but I don't think that's possible. But I do think that when this issue becomes mainstream in the sense that yes, it's incredibly painful. Yes. It can't be tolerated. Yes. We have to deal with it, but it is not shameful in that.

It's not like the entire family now there's the stigma. I was sexually abused and therefore all of my siblings will never find, you know, a shidduch. They'll never get married because there's so much shame around this issue. There shouldn't be shame around the issue in the sense that anyone affected by it is somehow is like a leper.

Like there's some sort of horrible thing, which is how it always, historically that was the way that victims and survivors felt. And I think that when we can succeed in making that shift where again, sexual abuse, it's not tolerated and it's terrible, but it doesn't come with this like horror and shame associated with it, then I think we will have like really there, there will be a certain corner that I feel that we will have turned and I can see the light at the end of that tunnel. I can see the community getting there in the way that people talk when they call us and the way people respond when I tell them about what I do, that's a big one. I've seen that seen the shift over the years. I think we're going to get there. And that gives me a tremendous amount of hope. 

[00:20:43] Elana Wien: Amazing. Thank you so much, Shana. I'm so excited about the work that you're doing and I'm excited for our listeners to get a chance to hear these really incredible insights. And I just want to wish you so much strength as you continue in forging this work ahead.

[00:20:58] Shana Aaronson: Thank you so much. It's really nice to be here. 

(Theme Music)

[00:21:02] Elana Wien: Our goal on Just Leading is to think differently about leadership. Next week, I'll be passing the mic to Gali Cooks. She'll be speaking with Mamie Kanfer Stewart. 

[00:21:12] Mamie Kanfer Stewart: There's a real difference between changing someone's behavior, changing their understanding, and changing their heart. 

[00:21:22] Elana Wien: Just Leading is supported by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

It's produced by Wonder Media Network and Anna McClain. For more information about the organizations we work for, check out the Jews Of Color Initiative at jewsofcolorinitiative.org, the SRE Network at srenetwork.org and Leading Edge at leadingedge.org.