While most documentaries focus on child sexual abuse within institutions, this documentary aims to educate and raise awareness on child sexual abuse within the family. To our knowledge, this is a world-first within the Jewish community – where a family agrees to go on the public record in this manner. The family is known by many in the Melbourne Jewish community and are/were connected to the Modern Orthodox community. Of course, everything is being done in close consultation with all involved, especially the victim/survivor.
While the focus of this documentary is on the victim/survivor and her story, there is also a lot of secondary trauma involved with the rest of the family. Therefore, we will also discuss the profound and ongoing broader impact of the abuse.
We will be focusing on issues like prevention (i.e. was this preventable in any way), intervention (i.e. picking up signs of abuse at an earlier opportunity – prior to the dad owning up to it one Friday night after the Shabbat meal), support (i.e. the role of the various family members – especially the wife/mum and her role), etc. This will literally be a teaching/learning experience like no other.