Rivka Joseph is a brave woman. She is a mom from Cleveland who recently spoke at event run by Jewish Community Watch (JCW), an organization dedicated to combating child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, this past February in order to battle against child sexual abuse.
The event was held in Pittsburgh in Squirrel Hill’s Jewish Community Center, where attendees heard the stories from survivors, advocates, and law enforcement officials who either spoke from personal experience or about the widespread prevalence of abuse, and why we need to talk about it.
Joseph spoke to the crowd, revealing the abuse she suffered as a child–at the hands of her own brother, stating:
“A survivor of incest is sentenced to a lifetime of secrecy. And the reward for telling the truth can be losing your family.”
Watch the entire video here–it’s extremely heartbreaking and difficult to sit through, but necessary:
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