Interfaith Organization Issues Guidelines For Religious Leaders To Prevent ‘Sexual Offenses’
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — An interfaith initiative based in Jerusalem has created international ethics guidelines for religious leaders to insure proper conduct with their congregants.
The “Ten Guidelines” were announced last week in Jerusalem by the International Conference of the Israeli organization Tahel, Israel’s Crisis Center for Religious Women and Children. The new initiative calls upon religious leaders around the world to unite and discuss issues of sexual violence and abuse within the community and to formulate and adhere to international guidelines.
The Ten Guidelines include a reminder to clergy to trust their instincts. For example, the guidelines say: “If you feel that extra distance is appropriate in a specific circumstance, trust your feelings. It’s a red flag, warning you to take extra precautions.”
Another guideline urges religious leaders to avoid virtual communication with their students, congregants and followers, since words can be misconstrued and understood as inappropriate or harassing. They are also encouraged to install glass doors in their offices, place a desk between them and their guests, document any meeting in writing, and avoid all physical contact.
Among the world leaders who signed their names to the guidelines are Rabbi Doctor Aharon Adler from Jerusalem, a Talmudic scholar; and Ramadan Dabash, Mukhtar in eastern Jerusalem.
“Religious victims of abuse will often turn to their faith leader long before they appeal to the authorities, on the assumption that they feel secure enough to go public at all,” said Tahel Director Debbie Gross in a statement. She added that the guidelines emphasize that religious institutions can be “fertile ground for sexual offenses.”
Gross said the new guidelines were meant to fight “the tendency to hush up stories within the community in order to preserve its solid reputation.”
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
