Beth Vander Stoep
This is the story of a young woman who was silent but one day found her voice. Nearly a decade ago at my undergraduate alma mater, one of my dear friends was the victim of sexual violence on campus. A few days after the incident, after receiving medical care, she took the incredibly brave step of going to report the attack to the campus police. She wore her Magen David necklace to her meeting with the police officer.
Instead of believing her story, the police officer started grilling her about her relationship with her attacker. He asked a series of completely unrelated and inappropriate questions, including the question “Why wasn’t he your boyfriend? Is it because he isn’t Jewish?” What the officer did that day was demonstrate a clear antisemitic bias that led to his perception that Jewish women do not deserve to be believed.
Shortly thereafter, the young woman received a letter in the mail — the case had been dismissed and the court urged her “to seek support in her friends and family.” The young woman then traveled to Israel to study there. She walked through the halls of Yad Vashem, surrounded by stories of Jewish women who had been attacked and their voices silenced.
At the end of Yad Vashem there is an overlook of the city of Jerusalem — the city defended by Esther Calingold, Yael and Yehudit. It’s a city with a legacy of powerful women standing up for themselves and their sisters.
On Oct. 7, our Israeli sisters experienced mass sexual violence at the hands of Hamas. We know from eyewitness testimony of survivors that the women and men taken hostage have continued to experience sexual violence alongside other countless forms of torture. U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Pratten reported: “Based on the information it gathered, the mission team found clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment has been committed against hostages and has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing against those still held in captivity.”
Despite hard evidence, including the testimonies of the recently rescued hostages, many feminists and feminist organizations have remained silent on their condemnation of these atrocities. Many people have shifted to outright denying that these crimes occurred. Some people have gone so far as to say that somehow Israeli women deserved these horrific crimes. I’m writing this in 2024; years after I thought that the #MeToo movement had addressed that our default position should be to believe survivors when they come forward about sexual violence.
I’m 30 years old and despite my youth, I’ve seen this story play out before in America. It starts with unchecked, one-off antisemitic comments. It turns into defensiveness — “oh, I’m not antisemitic, I’m…” It leads to dehumanization of Jews and eventually it results in people in positions of civil responsibility deliberately failing in their duties to protect those they serve. It happens on college campuses, in schools and in our neighborhoods. It intersects with decades of unchecked racism, xenophobia and homophobia. It’s unbiased politically and hedges itself both on the far left and far right. Antisemitism, particularly when it intersects with sexism, is a virus that we know from 2,000 years of history is deadly. This form can and will lead to Jewish American women on U.S. soil having their cases dismissed when they come forward about sexual violence.
I’m a Jewish feminist, which means my worldview must be pragmatic. I know that myself and countless others who identify similarly are fighting an uphill battle against an avalanche of intentional misinformation. I also know that Hillel the Elder once said “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” We must continue to loudly proclaim “I believe Israeli women.” We must continue the fight to demand justice for our Israeli sisters, keeping in mind that if we do not give this fight all we have there will be consequences for the generations of Jewish women in both Israel and in the U.S. for decades to come.
Our hour to loudly advocate for Israeli women is now. In our fight for justice, surrendering is not an option. We are exhausted but persistence is our only option.
I once asked a Holocaust survivor who went on to become a trauma psychologist, “what is the difference between a victim and a survivor?” She looked me in the eye and said, “a survivor is one who chooses to walk out of the gates and chooses what she will do.”
After getting the appropriate support, my friend had a happy ending — she’s a Jewish feminist who has used this experience to propel her to advocate for others. She loudly says, “I believe Israeli women and won’t be silent ever again.”
Beth Vander Stoep is the founder of Baltimore Area Jewish Feminists.
