Customer Reviews

Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture and Life)

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Tempest in the Temple provides an honest and open look into how the jewish community has handled allegations of child sexual abuse from their members. Mindful of the disasterous consequences from how leaders within the Catholic community dealt with similar allegations, the reports from rabbis and other jewish leaders indicate a cautious and mindful approach when these situations arise.

The editor has included writings from rabbis, educators, pastoral counselors, sociologists, mental health professionals, and legal advocates for abuse victims. This broad sweep of perspectives allows the reader a glimpse into the complex and highly traditional religious community. The articles are presented in three sections, organized by the context of the authors expertise. Section one explores the impact of active sexual exploitation within the rabinical organization. Section two covers characteristics of the community that contribute to the cover up of scandal. In section three, the authors provide details on how the jewish community is working to better protect their members from abusers, providing prompt and supportive assistance to members who make allegations, and how to better prepare congregations so that scandal does not destroy their sense of solidarity.

This book is an interesting read due to the thoughtful and almost gentle presentation of the subject matter. As a professional researcher, I found the articles well researched and referenced. It was enlightening to read about how a closed religious society operates and deals with controversy while attempting to remain united. Two aspects that are most impressive are how thoroughly explained and logically laid out each course of action was and the efforts behind examining how each step will impact thie jewish community as a whole and the congregation of the victim/perpetrator in particular.


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Tempest in the temple is a collection of essays edited by Amy Neustein that addresses the much under-reported issue of sexual abuse within Jewish Communities. The book is divided into three parts and comprised of nine essays from people with diverse backgrounds - lawyer, rabbi, survivors of child abuse, psychologists, and social workers. These different perspectives each bring a unique voice to the topic. This book includes essays containing heart wrenching tales of abuse, the frustrating pursuit of an accused abuser over twenty years, technical issues of how the abuser/abused relation develops, characteristics of abusers, and recommended approaches to handling potential cases of abuse.

One of the most intellectually engaging aspects of the book are the attempts to understand why the community would act to hide cases of abuse. One particularly striking reason is the concept of m'sirah; the idea of informing on a Jew to a non-Jewish authority being against Judaic law. In some Orthodox circles there are amazingly strong proscriptions against m'sirah that include enacting a death penalty on the informant. There are also strange concerns of providing fuel for anti-Semitic views and generally an attitude that suggests the shame of revealing that abuse occurs in the community is somehow worse then the actual presence of the issue.

This book provides a number of well written essays that explores the topic of child abuse in an in depth manner. The only concern I would have is that a reader might conclude that the assertions and issues brought up only apply to Jewish communities.After reading this collection it is apparent that many of the reasons for abuse arise out of the power differential of rabbi and congregant and are allowed to occur due to the surrounding bureaucracy - neither of which are unique to Jewish communities. I'd encourage any reader of this book to keep this aspect in mind while reading this collection.

A at times painful read but I'd recommend it to anyone interested in better understanding how abuse occurs within a religious context.