Rebbetzin’s abuse experience shapes her drive to protect children

Kol Nidre is busy at South Caulfield Hebrew Congregation, as it is at any synagogue. While the adults are engaged in the service, children move through the shule, in and out of side rooms and around the grounds.

“Who’s focusing on the kids? I am,” says Rebbetzin Lifshy Ajzenszmidt.

There is a personal driver that prompts her to make sure children are never wholly unsupervised, she told The Jewish Independent.

Ajzenszmidt was sexually abused by a relative when she was 10, in her family home in New York. It was the night before his wedding. He touched her sexually and asked how it felt and which part she liked best. Afterwards, she remembers pretending to be asleep until he sent her back to her bedroom. The next day, she went to his wedding.

She did not consciously remember what had happened for years, but when she was 16, away at school and talking with friends, the memory returned.

“I think I was molested,” she remembers saying.

She called her relative and recounted the experience. He said he did not remember doing it, apologised if he had done it, then asked her not to tell anyone.

Initially she agreed to the pressure to keep quiet, but months later, she told her mother. She was met with anger and disbelief, followed by excuses and pressure to move on. Her mother later told her it had happened only once and that she should get over it.