Endorsements
Bat
Melech-Miklat meets a vital need in the Jewish
community. Many gedole hador (leaders of our generation) have lauded
our work.
These Include:
HaRav
Ovadia Yossef
Rabbi
Shlomo Moshe Amar
Rabbi David
Yosef
Rabbi
Yehuda Yosefi
Rabbi
Elchanan Perets
Rabbi
Shmuel Slotki
HaRav
Ovadia Yossef
RISHON LEZION
AND PRESIDENT OF TORAH SAGES COUNCIL
Recommendation
My heartfelt
blessings to the "Bat Melech"
organization for battered women which, under the administration of
rabbanim, assists women and tries (0 establish domestic peace while
providing them with advice and grants - all according to the Torah
while consulting with Torah scholars.
May they be
blessed for many years to come with
goodness, happiness, wealth, success and all the best.
---
Rabbi
Shlomo Moshe Amar
Chief Rabbi
of Israel
Adar 2005
Recommendation
To my
brothers, who wish to contribute for the
good of the people, I request that you donate generously to the
important organization, "Bat-Melech", headed by Rav Noach Korman (may
he be blessed with peace and long life) from the holy city of
Jerusalem, who has undertaken to help religious women in distress and
has compiled a booklet called "Bat-Melech's Cry for Help" with
clarifications regarding the honour of the woman whose tears are found
"under the Holy Throne".
It is a great
mitzva to support this organization
with a good and generous spirit. "Etz chaim he lamachazikim ba,
vetomcheha meushar" (The donators will be blessed by the Almighty with
good fortune.)
With
blessings,
Shlomo Moshe Amar
Rishon Lezion and Chief Rabbi of Israel
---
Rav
Shmuel Kamenetsky
hembne ktuna
Rabbi S. Kamenetsky
2018 Upland
Way
Philadelphia, PA 19131
Domestic Violence in the Jewish Home
Remarks by
Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky at a Miklat Event
in New York
December 17,
2003
Domestic
violence is a very hurtful subject. Women
who have not experienced it say, “I wouldn’t stand
for
that.” People who haven’t been through it ask the
victims,
“Why don’t you get away from him? You’re
suffering?
Get away!” These are normal reactions.
When you hear
about a wife being beaten,
isn’t that how you react? That’s why people do not
care
about this issue, because they feel, “Help
yourself.”
However, we have to realize the situation in which the battered woman
finds herself. First and foremost, we will realize that she does not
want to go away. Why doesn’t she want to go away?
That’s
the question.
She’s
in love with her husband and she
doesn’t want to leave. At the same time, he abuses her
—
psychologically, mentally, and financially. And if the husband drinks a
little bit, then there’s the potential for an outpouring of
violence.
Once, I got a
call at 2:00 a.m., 2 in the morning,
from a city three hours away from us. There, it was only 11:00 p.m. It
was a rabbi, a colleague of mine, telling me that he didn’t
know
what to do. A lady had just come to him. She had been beaten by her
husband, and he didn’t know what to do about her. I said,
“Keep the woman in the house until the husband comes and says
that he is going to see a psychologist. He must promise that, and you
have to see that he follows through.”
An hour
later, I got a call from the woman;
it’s now 3:00 in the morning. She said, “Rabbi, the
rabbi
told me to stay here, but I want to go home.” I said,
“You
want to go home? You know what happened in your home, and
it’s
not the first time! Why do you want to go home?!”
Why does she
want to go home? Because a man who
abuses his wife develops in her a certain amount of insecurity. He
inculcates this in his wife so that she loses all her friends. He takes
her away from her family, too. He tears her away from her family. He
wants to be the dominant person. He wants to control her. And he does
control her. We know that, because she wants to go back. She wants to
go back because he makes her promises. Every time, he makes promises.
How many promises?
That is the
reason. There is a certain amount of
insecurity that the woman feels, and he magnifies that insecurity, so
that she thinks she cannot exist without him. He makes her feel
dependent financially, by holding back money. And he makes her feel
dependent emotionally, by taking her away from her friends, making sure
she can’t keep in contact with the friends.
There was an
article, a few years ago, in the
newspaper about a woman who, unfortunately, was killed by her husband,
rachmana litzlan, because she didn’t runaway. The mother of
that
woman was asked, “Why didn’t she go away before
this
happened?” She answered, “She couldn’t go
away. He
threatened her all the time. He threatened to kill her, but she
couldn’t leave.”
That is the
situation. And that is the reason that
the woman does not run away. She has nowhere to run. She is treated so
bitterly that she is torn away from her family, her friends,
financially held back, and she simply has nowhere to run.
That is the
situation. She feels so insecure; she
has such low self-esteem. If she can get away from him, and get support
from the outside, then she would be able to function.
And this
wonderful lady, Estanne Fawer, this
princess, she thought about this woman, about all these women, and it
concerned her. And she decided to do something about it.
In our
circles, unfortunately, we find many, many
problems. I told her last time, “we cannot shove it under the
carpet anymore.” Ms. Fawer remembers that.
We have to
face reality. There’s a Jewish
saying, “Ve es kristelzich, azoi Yidelzich.” The
way others
do, the Jews do, too. We are influenced by what is out there.
This is such
a sore subject, so painful, for a
person to lose so much self-esteem. This is the greatest
tza’ar,
the greatest pain a person could have. Helping this person is so
important. It is mamash like saving a life: a mother, the children, the
whole situation. With psychological help for the husband, perhaps it is
possible even to bring back the family. But doing nothing, it is not
possible.
This is the
mission of Miklat, an organization
dedicated to battered women.
What can we do for the women of Miklat? What can we do for the
husbands? Here is the situation where we have Miklat, which is
dedicated to the battered women, but what can we do for the husbands?
How can we help? If we can find ways that can help, maybe we can bring
the family together, but that needs a lot of work. That requires a
different understanding between a husband and his wife and how he
treats her. She cannot give up her own personality to save the family.
They need a new understanding.
The husband
comes home from work and feels he
controls the house; he is the boss. And suddenly, she is lost; she
loses her own personality. She is truly lost. Is there anything we can
do about this? We have to bring people back to their own feelings, to
their own understandings, to a level of respect for each other as human
beings.
It is such a zechus, such a mitzvah, to save a soul. Saving one soul is
saving a whole world. And Miklat gives us the opportunity to save many
people: the women, the children, the husbands: the whole family.
Rav Shmuel
Kamenetsky has served as the Rosh
Yeshiva of The Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia for the past 50
years. He is a member of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah and serves on the
Rabbinical Board of many worldwide organizations, including Torah
Schools for Israel, Torah Umesorah, and the Association of Jewish
Outreach Professionals. A renowned leader of Diaspora Jews, his Torah
wisdom and practical advice reach communities locally, nationally, and
worldwide.
---
Rabbi
David Yosef
Harav David
Yosef
Rav of “Har Nof” and Head of Beit Midrash
“Yehave
Daat”
Jerusalem,
May 2, 2004
My dear and
noble friend and companion, a G-d
fearing, learned, educated and very intelligent man of considerable
achievement, one of the select few, Harav Noach Korman,
Much peace
and salvation I come with these words
to express my appreciation for your great and blessed work in the
organization of Miklat-Bat Melech, which set its goal at caring for and
treating unfortunate women who sorrowfully are in great distress in
their relationships with their husbands, who as a result of which are
forced to leave their homes and oftentimes suffer great and
indescribable abuse, while you concern yourself with their welfare and
well-being, rescuing the oppressed, and doing whatever you can to bring
peace to their home – all this while consulting with Torah
scholars and experts in the matter.
I hereby give
him my heartfelt blessings that he
succeed in all his endeavors, with many years of life, satisfaction and
pleasure from all his offspring, Amen.
With respect
and loyal friendship,
David Yosef
---
Rabbi
Yehuda
Yosefi
Rabbi Yehuda
Yosefi is a charedi Ulhuanian rabbi
who lives in Bnei Brak.
I hereby give
my endorsement of the organization
that you run, called "Miklat-Bat
Melech" which assists women in distress regarding the relationship with
their husbands.
Sadly,
sometimes things reach violence and
physical and emotional abuse towards women and children.
I know that
you operate with total devotion,
quietly and modestly and out of the purpose to help and repair.
Your
professional work is done by workers who are
·Yere'ot Shamayim" [G-d fearing], and all through continuous
consultation with rabbis, in the torah way.
May Hashem
give you much success.
With
blessings,
Yehuda Yosefi
---
Rabbi
Elchanan Perets
Rav Elchanan
Perets
Rabbi of Bet Chemech B'
And Head of Rabbinical Courts
February, 2005
I had the
honor of seeing the booklet, "The Cry of
The Jewish Daughter", that was written by my learned and intelligent
friend, Harav Noach Korman Shlita, a man of considerable achievement,
who is totally dedicated to bringing a cure to the daughters of Israel,
and the contents of the booklet is true, written in good taste and
arranged in proper order.
The painful
matter of beatings and abuse must be
fundamentally treated and this booklet serves as an important step in
making people aware of the severity of the prohibition and to prevent
many misdemeanors.
May G-d
strengthen the hand of the author in all
his endeavors and in this booklet and may he succeed in saving the
oppressed from his oppressor and for this may he be blessed with the
blessings of the prophet Yeshayahu, "Az yibaka keshachar orcha", to
those who break the power of evil and in that way help the needy.
With
blessings from the Torah,
Elchanan Perets
---
Rabbi
Shmuel Slotki
Dear Bat
Melech and adv. Noach Korman,
I would like
to thank you for the devoted care you
have provided to S. Without your assistance, the process of receiving
her Get would certainly have taken a long time and cost much more.
The legal
assistance and emotional support
you’ve given S have become for her a source of strength and
power
in dealing with her aggressive husband and with the distressful times
that have made her life so difficult.
We as a
community at Kibbutz Ein Hanatsiv have
taken her under our wing, but without your help her situation would
have been very different.
It warms the
heart to see that there are people
who are willing to give a hand to others, to women in distress, for no
financial compensation, out of a true desire to help and with a big
Kiddush Shem Shamayim.
Keep up the
Chesed and Mizvot
Yeshar koach
With much
appreciation and blessing,
Shmuel Slotki
Rabbi of
Kibbutz Ein Hanatsiv
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