Singing for shelter

Yehuda Poliker is performing at a charity concert for the Woman to Woman shelter for battered women, which provides a temporary home for those in need.

By BARRY DAVIS
women to women charity 512 (photo credit: Courtesy/Women to Women)
women to women charity 512
(photo credit: Courtesy/Women to Women)
For the last three decades, the Woman to Woman Jerusalem Shelter for Battered Women has been providing a temporary haven for women who have suffered from violent spouses. On Wednesday, the center will hold a charity concert at the International Convention Center starring Yehuda Poliker. This has become an annual event, with the likes of Gidi Gov and Yehudit Ravitz contributing their time and talents to supporting the shelter over the years.
“We get support from all sorts of institutions and we are very grateful,” says Miri Ben-Shalom Dor, the shelter’s director. Ben-Shalom Dor has been on staff at the shelter for over 13 years and has headed it for the last 18 months. Around half of the funding comes from government bodies, with the remainder provided by private donors. Private assistance comes to the shelter partly by way of PEF Israel Endowment Funds in New York and the New Israel Fund offices in Washington, DC and London.
The premises of the shelter, located in Baka, appear to be comfortable and provide for all the needs of the unfortunate temporary residents and their children. “There is a children’s house here,” explains Ben-Shalom Dor, “and we give the women comprehensive support – a roof over their head, clothing, food and all sorts of things. They don’t want for anything here.”
The director says that the shelter caters to all kinds of women. “This is a very heterogeneous group. At any given time we have women from Russia, Ethiopia and Sudan, Arab women and we currently have a woman from India here who fell in love with an Israeli man who was on vacation in India. She followed him here after he promised her heaven on earth but after they got married she discovered she needed our services. We still don’t know how things are going to work out for her.”
Ironically, the multi-ethnic international makeup of the shelter’s temporary residents gives rise to a welcome social and cultural state of affairs. “There is complete coexistence between all the women here, regardless of their ethnicity,” says Ben-Shalom Dor, adding that she has heard some backhanded compliments bandied about. “A few years back one [Jewish] woman said to an Arab woman ‘it doesn’t matter what I think about Arabs in the outside world, here you are my sister.’ That was nice,” laughs the director.
That is part and parcel of the living conditions at the shelter. Ben-Shalom Dor explains. “There is a great intimacy about this place. The women live together and go about their daily chores together,” she says, adding that, unfortunately, the women also share a common denominator. “They come from different backgrounds and religions and have different viewpoints, but the dynamics of violence in the home are very similar. They find a shared language very quickly, and that’s something that an outsider won’t understand.”
This camaraderie, albeit in unfortunate, unnatural circumstances, is an important part of the process of emotional recuperation.
“In addition to violence these women have suffered from a great sense of loneliness. Then they come to the shelter and encounter women who, first of all, look like human beings, not monsters or prostitutes or drug addicts. That is a calming influence, when they realize it didn’t just happen to them. That is a crucial part of the therapy, and no less important than the professional help they get here.”
The latter is provided by a large staff of social workers, psychologists and other carers, in addition to volunteers. There are currently 22 professionals on staff, while all sorts of members of the public, of all ages, come by regularly to help the women deal with red tape or take them on cultural trips or leisure outings. As the shelter caters to between 11 and 14 women at any given time, that’s not a bad ratio.
“We also have a continuation project with transitional homes. There are 10 rented apartments – eight in Jerusalem and two in Ashkelon,” notes Ben- Shalom Dor. “They are for women who still need some support before they are capable of leading their own lives. There are women who went straight from their parents’ home into marriage and never lived on their own, so they need more help.”
The generally held view is that it is primarily, if not exclusively, women from the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder who end up in shelters. Ben- Shalom Dor acknowledges that this is largely, though not entirely, accurate. This is not necessarily because there is more domestic strife among the financially less well-off.
“I do think there is more violence in the lower classes, but it does happen in other groups; it is just that women from other groups don’t need shelter services so much. They have support from friends and family, they can afford professional support and therapy, they can rent another apartment and hire the services of a lawyer. The women who end up at shelters simply don’t have the means to manage otherwise. Shelters are a very important place for them.”
On average, battered women spend around six months at the shelter, although there are exceptions. “Some come here and suddenly get cold feet and go back home,” says Ben-Shalom Dor. She hastens to add that however brief the women’s stay at the shelter, they always leave with at least one crucial benefit. “After being here, even if only for a short time, they then know there is an alternative to their domestic situation, that if need be they have somewhere they can go.”
Ben-Shalom Dor and her colleagues constantly grapple with tough situations, some of which are literally life-threatening. It can also be emotionally draining work. “But I always come to work happily and leave tired with a sense of fulfillment,” she says.
“It is far from being all roses here but we all have a sense of achievement when we have successes.”
There have also been some tragic cases. The walls of Ben-Shalom Dor’s cramped office are lined with paintings, drawings and photographs made by some of the women who have passed through the shelter, plus a couple of paintings by her grandmother. One painting is of a smiling older woman, but there is a sad story behind the portrait. “That is a picture of a woman who endured her husband’s violence for a long time and finally made it here at the age of 73,” she explains. “In the divorce proceedings she asked for half the couple’s home but the husband said that he would kill her if the court found in her favor. She got half the apartment and a few weeks later the husband followed her to Malha and killed her. Her friend did the portrait. There is a lot of sadness in our work, but a lot of hope too.”
Tickets for the Poliker concert cost NIS 200 – 220 and all proceeds will go to keeping the institution in Baka afloat. The event will be attended by outgoing Jerusalem Foundation president Ruth Cheshin, and there will be an exhibition of drawings and paintings by some of the children who have lived at the shelter.

For more information about the shelter and the charity concert or for tickets: 679-1774 and www.jerusalemshelter.org.il