(I’m editing this post at 4:30pm Central based on some feedback.)
Many people feel qualified to judge Miriam Anzovin, the creator of provocative TikTok videos on the daily daf. I’ve written about her before on my substack. And certainly, people can feel free to judge her use of swear words or her lack of reverence for the Talmud. But that is different from judging her. Judging her as a person, as a human being, suggests you know and understand her. And you don’t.
There are important things most people don’t know about Anzovin. For example, she is a divorcee, an atheist who went through the process of getting a get. And today she revealed that she is a survivor of sexual assault. (You can see the context by viewing today’s post on Chagiga 9-10). See our conversation below.
Anzovin is doing what she does because she wants to protect other people from having to go through the experiences she has lived through herself. You may not agree with her methods or her manner of engaging with the Talmud text. You may not agree with her conclusions as to exactly what needs to change. But she has the most sincere, precious and compelling motivations. Her intentions are pure. She wants to help others. In this, she joins others who felt disenfranchised from their communities, and who also were willing to take a stand- one buoyed by anger- to ask tough questions.
In 2016 Heshy Deutsch released a video called “Dear Future Generations, I’m Sorry.” It’s incredibly powerful. I think about it all the time. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should. I’m going to excerpt one part of it.
Let’s talk about how many dead people walking we have roaming around our communities. Eternally bleeding like zombies. Searching for a meaning. Searching for a home. Searching for someone to look at their direction. Searching for someone to love them. Searching for answers. Answers that they will never get from anyone in this community. Cause if you don’t ask the questions, how do you expect to be able to answer them?
We have dead malnourished skeletons walking besides us every day and all we do is stare at them as if we were in a museum from the 1940s. You call them OTD without even knowing the definition of the letters. Cause according to you it’s off the derech. But according to them it’s off their parents’ derech. The derech that caused them so much pain. Off their community’s derech. The derech that suffocates them. But my real question is how dare you call them off the derech when you don’t even know what your own derech stands for?
Let’s not even mention the fact that when there is someone out there who wants to help, someone who actually makes it his life’s mission to save those innocent young souls, he gets badmouthed, looked down at in the community and underfunded. And that’s not because we have an economic recession. That’s because those multibillionaires would rather fund a multi billon dollar organization and get their names written all over the multi billion dollar shul they built than actually give money to a new yeshiva, a new school, a new program that opened up to help those kids at risk- to help those who need help most.
Some things have changed since 2016. Some things are changing in the wake of the Chaim Walder sexual abuse scandal. But not enough. And not fast enough.
So if you’re going to critique Miriam Anzovin, if you feel like you can write her off because she doesn’t engage with the Talmud in the respectful, reverent tone you might use, I hope you don’t ignore the substance of her critiques. She, like Heshy above, is asking the hard questions. And she’s doing it because she dreams of a better world.
I hope you’re going to take up the mantle of fighting for the oppressed, the marginalized, the children who have been sexually abused, the women who have been sexually assaulted, and say: no more. Not on my watch. Not in my community. I hope you’re going to advocate for training that makes our communities safer- like sexual abuse prevention. I hope you’re going to buy a Magenu Kit from Eichlers and send it to all your family members who live in communities that will not teach about sexual abuse prevention in their schools. I hope, in other words, you’re going to have the guts and the willingness to do what she’s doing- in a way that you find more palatable.
If you’re in the Modern Orthodox community, I hope you’re going to be vocal about the rape at YU, and about the fact that we need better sex education for all of our high school students. We need to talk about consent. We need to talk to our young men about pornography, and what’s real and what isn’t. We need to actively teach respect for women and we need to prevent sexual assault- or at least make sure that someone cannot end up in that situation unintentionally because they simply do not know better because we as a community have failed them.
Anzovin’s intentions are honorable. Her work is important.
Join me, join her, and let’s all be protectors of the small.
Thank you so much for writing this. Thank you also for speaking out so strongly for abuse victims/survivors, and for advocating for healthier communities for all. Your words are so needed. I recently started writing on this topic as well. My blog is about my experiences as a survivor of abuse, and how we can make our world more supportive to survivors: https://talisteinewritingproject.substack.com/
Thank you for your article. I enjoyed reading it and found it very interesting. I liked the point about "In short, an abuser’s core problem is that he has a distorted sense of right and wrong." This gives more clarity to why they are controlling. Thank you for the insight.
Btw in the source you quoted
"There’s the Yalkut Shimoni
אשה כשרה היתה ועושה רצון בעלה מכאן אמרו אין לך אשה כשרה בנשים אלא אשה שהיא עושה רצון בעלה:"
The word עושה can also be translated as makes. The meforash can be read as she who makes her husband's will rather than she who does her husband's will. I don't remember the source offhand but I believe it's found somewhere in לקוטי שחות.