By EETTA PRINCE-GIBSONExtract from an article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
The recent murder of three toddlers, by their parents or grandparent, along with several additional cases of extreme child abuse in Israel, have left child-care experts and parents reeling and sparked widespread soul-searching in a country that regards itself as a "child-friendly" and caring society.
The most high-profile case is that of 4-year-old Rose Pizem, who was allegedly murdered by her grandfather, who is also married to her mother, Marie Pizem who has also been implicated in the death. Details of the case were released to the public, after suspension of a gag order, in late August. Rose's body has not been found, although the
grandfather/stepfather, Ronny Ron, has admitted to murdering the child and claims to have dumped her body into the Yarkon River, outside of Tel Aviv. Navy divers have been aiding the police in dredging the toxically polluted river in search of the child's body, while soldiers are searching the area around Netanya, where the family lived.
Only days after this case was made public, Olga Borisov, a single mother from Rishon Letzion, drowned her 4-year-old son on a Bat Yam beach, then asked passersby to kill her. She said that she killed the child because he suffered from hyperactivity and that she was incapable of taking care of him. On September 2, Regina Kruchkov from south Tel Aviv called police emergency services after drowning her four year old son in the bath. According to media reports, she provided no motive or explanation.
According to Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, director of the National Council for the Welfare of the Child, an average of 5 or 6 children are murdered by family members every year. Worldwide, Kadman notes, the average age of children murdered by parents is 4 - the same age as these three Israeli children. While comparative data among Western countries regarding infanticide are not available, Kadman notes that in Israel, as in most Western countries, 2-3 percent of children are known to be abused, with an unknown number of abuse cases not reported.
Kadman also tells The Report that an estimated 35,000 Israeli children are at risk for parental neglect or abuse.
Observers were quick to note that all three mothers are immigrants to Israel. (Pizem's mother is from France; the other two are from the Former Soviet Union.) However, Tzvi Avisar, spokesman for the Absorption Ministry, tells The Report that he views these as separate cases, involving deeply troubled people, and that "there is no indication that their behavior was connected in any way to difficulties associated with immigration." Avisar also notes that the mothers were veteran immigrants who had been in Israel for more than a decade. He added, however, that the Ministry is investigating these cases, as well as other cases of child abuse, to decide upon possible future support programs, especially for single mothers or families with particular difficulties.
Israeli media have reported on all three cases in great detail, running heart-wrenching pictures of the murdered children, revealing intimate details of their families' lives and providing live broadcasts from the river search. Writing in Ha'ayin Hashivi'it (The Seventh Eye) a journal devoted to media criticism, veteran print and radio journalist Carmit Guy called the coverage "pornographic" and accused the media of sensationalism and abuse of the children's memories in order to sell newspapers and garner ratings.
Furthermore, according to media analyst Yariv Ben-Eliezer, the extensive, nearly obsessive coverage may have led to a copycat phenomenon and reinforced behavior of some parents who already have a tendency towards child abuse. More recently, the media have been providing instructions to parents as to how to speak to their children about these cases and the Education Ministry has issued guidelines to teachers.
The ostensible failure of social services to provide support services and child protection services has also been heatedly discussed. However, neither Pizem nor Borisov had ever come to the attention of social or educational services; the Kruchkov child attended a preschool, where his caretakers reported that he was a well-adjusted and well-cared-for child, and they had not noticed any reason for concern.
The Social Affairs Ministry has noted that while many Israeli children do attend regis-tered day-care facilities or preschools, often from age 2 or even younger, there is no law mandating any supervision or monitoring of children before kindergarten, at age 5. In response, the Social Affairs Minister Yitzhak Herzog has announced that he will propose legislation to obligate parents of children below the age of 5 to report to well-baby clinics or activity centers for young children twice a year.
Extract from an article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
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