Washington Jewish Week - 10.05.2000

 

Washington Jewish Week
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JWI, NCSJ to combat 
domestic violence in Russia

by Eric Fingerhut
Staff Writer 

At October 3 Press Conference announcing U.S. State Department grant for Jewish Women International (JWI) / NCSJ Domestic Violence Project in Russia: (l.-r.) Diane Gardsbane, JWI Director of Programs; Sarah Tisch, Project Kesher officer; Lesley Weiss, NCSJ Director of Community Services & Cultural Affairs; Barbara Rabkin, JWI President

Two national Jewish organizations that are teaming up to fight domestic violence in Russia have received a federal grant to help in their efforts.

The State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Exchanges has given Jewish Women International and NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia $130,000 to undertake a 15-month women's leadership training project on domestic violence in two Jewish communities in Russia.

Domestic violence is a "pervasive problem" in Russia, and very few services for battered women even exist in the country, according to Diane Gardsbane, JWI director of programs. By targeting the Jewish community, the hope is to create a "model for community action" that can spread to other religious and ethnic communities.

Gardsbane notes that "religious and faith-based groups [in the United States] have been extremely effective in creating social change and being of assistance to victims" of domestic violence.

So on Oct. 16, Gardsbane and Lesley Weiss, NCSJ's director of community service and cultural affairs, will head to Tula and Voronezh -- each with 2,000-3,000 Jews -- to select eight community and religious leaders who can be effective organizers on domestic violence issues within the Russian Jewish community.

Weiss said that the Russian Jewish Congress and the women's leadership and training organization Project Kesher will assist the two in selecting people who are already active in the Jewish community and interested in working to combat domestic violence.

The chosen eight will be brought to the United States in January for an intensive 2 1/2-week training course in three communities -- Richmond, Baltimore and Cleveland. The participants will work with domestic violence experts and community organizers in trying to address the needs of their local communities. JWI also is adapting and translating its resource guide on domestic violence for rabbis for the project.

Gardsbane said that once the eight trainers are provided with information, it will be up to them to decide "appropriate responses" back home. "What will work ... is part of what this group has to figure out," she said. "They will be leaders in trying to create some strategies as victims [of domestic violence] come forward."

Gardsbane said by the end of the 15 months, she hopes that the two areas could hold community-wide seminars on domestic violence, and start the process of training other ethnic and religious groups to become active on the issue.

Weiss said this project fits perfectly with the NCSJ's mission of helping facilitate programs that "further democracy and promote the safety and security of the Jewish community" in the former Soviet Union.

Gardsbane said the State Department considers the project highly important because of its impact on freedom. State Department officials are "interested in domestic violence [because] they feel that domestic violence impairs a woman's ability to participate in the democratic process."