‘I Was 13 When Marc Gafni’s Abuse Began’ - Opinion – Forward.com

I haven't posted concerning the Gafni affair as of yet as it came to the fore whilst on hiatus; I will be correcting that error in due time.  Kabakov's experience needs to be seen and heard. 

With all the accounts that have come out about Marc Gafni, the former rabbi and spiritual guru, you may wonder what more I have to offer. But this story is not over, even if Gafni never teaches or abuses again.

Right now there are children in the Jewish world, and in other communities, who are being abused and forced into silence. Their parents and teachers don’t know what is happening.

I know, because it happened to me. I am the woman Gafni molested when she was 13 years old. This is the first time I am telling my story in my own name.
,,,
After our first lesson, he proceeded to tell me how “special” I was, and that he really liked me. I got a weird feeling about this, but, being inexperienced with adult men, I didn’t have a clue how to respond. Soon he was not only showering me with attention, but also earnestly insisting that I keep our friendship a secret. He said that if my parents knew about it, they would blame me for associating with him, and that I would be shamed in my community. I didn’t understand why. He hadn’t touched me yet, but I now see that he was grooming me into being silent and fearful. He convinced me that I had to be loyal to him and “not tell” about how he felt about me. In retrospect, I see that he was manipulating me, had hooked me into an emotional trap, ensuring that I would not tell my parents or teachers.
,,,
It’s hard to describe the complex emotions I felt in that moment. My molester had finally decided to stop abusing me, to leave me alone, to move on. You might imagine that I would feel great relief; in fact, the full weight of the abuse I had endured in silence came crashing down on me. I was left with this horrible experience, yet with no one to talk to about it, with no language to express it. And he was retreating not because I had somehow managed to make him stop, but because he decided it just wasn’t worth the risk anymore. He was terrified that he would do more to me and get me pregnant; then there would be no way to keep his secret.

Yet I also felt elated that I had survived and that the psychological reign of my abuser was over. I would no longer be badgered by Gafni’s teshuvah rhetoric, would no longer be forced to hear about his tormented struggle with his perverse sexuality and his Judaism. I would no longer be woken up from sleep, no longer have to fight, and fail, to keep him away from my body.

But I was no longer part of the normal, oblivious world of my friends and classmates. I was now set apart from them in a way that none of them knew or, as far as I could imagine, would ever know. I could not feel connected to anyone, or to my school or synagogue.
,,,
Attempts to revoke the New York‘s statute of limitations have been resisted by the strategic alliance between the Catholic Church and Agudath Israel of America, a group representing ultra-Orthodox Jews. Both have an eye on the cost of an outpouring of old allegations once that statute is lifted. But sadly, they are not concerned with how the law as it stands today keeps abusers in place, and keeps children unprotected. When the chief concern within religious communities is to maintain the status quo and not make waves in the media, we cannot depend on those communities to be looking out for children’s best interest.

‘I Was 13 When Marc Gafni’s Abuse Began’ - Opinion – Forward.com