ELISE BRENNER:  I have to start all over again.  This is Elise Brenner here to interview Rebecca Chernin in Sharon, Massachusetts, on December 19, [2004].  Rebecca is our 2004 Women Who Dared nominee.  Rebecca, if you would be so kind as to tell us a little bit about your childhood and upbringing?

REBECCA CHERNIN:  Sure.  I was born in Arizona, and my family lived out there only until I was about three.  So, I don't remember it too much.  We moved to Sharon, Massachusetts, where I lived growing up.  When I was in third grade, I was diagnosed with dyslexia.  So, I attended the Carroll School in Lincoln for six years, third grade through eighth grade.  Then, I went to the New Jewish High School in Waltham for high school.  And now, I'm at Clark University.  So, my childhood was a nice, quiet town.  I didn't go to Hebrew school, but I had friends from Maimonides because I'd gone there first and second grade before I was diagnosed.

EB:  So, the relationship between not going to Hebrew school and being in an Orthodox household is the dyslexia challenge?  I assume that's the factor?

RC:  Yes.

EB:  Tell me about your parents, your grandparents, your siblings.

RC: Okay.  My parents both work.  My dad's a radiologist, and my mom's an early childhood educator.  They are going away soon.  They're going to Costa Rica.  They like to travel.  I love traveling also.

EB:  Are they going to take you?

RC:  No.  Not this trip.

EB:  You're staying in the cold.

RC:  Yeah, I'm staying in the cold.  My brother who's here, (Elie?) [Eliezer] – he's a student at Bryant University.  It’s in Rhode Island.  He's going for business management.  Then I have a third brother who's married and lives in Israel, actually.  So, I don't see him too much.  We usually go out there and visit him about once a year.

EB:  He made aliyah?

RC:  He made aliyah.

EB:  At a young age?

RC:  No, after he was married, so about six years ago.  So, they're very happy out there.  They're in Ramat Beit Shemesh.  So that's my nuclear family.  I'm very lucky.  I have all four grandparents alive.  My mom's parents, my mother's mother, she's a Holocaust survivor.  So, we talk a lot about that with her.  Sweet lady.  She's a great lady.  My mother's father is very smart.  They live out in LA.  Most of my family is on the West Coast still.  Then, my dad's parents – his father is a World War II veteran, I guess, and so he got a Purple Heart because he was injured in battle.  So, we hear all his war stories and hear all the Holocaust stories.

EB:  Must be brutal.  A little heroism in there, I'm sure.
RC:  Oh, yeah.  And then his wife, my dad's mother, is very sweet, too.  Great cook.  We go out every summer.  We have a family reunion out in California.  Rent out a condo in San Diego and all the cousins and aunts and uncles.  Yeah, it's really, really nice.  I've been doing that since I was born.  We've been doing that since forever.

EB:  Sounds great.  They’re pretty spread out.

RC:  Yeah, almost everyone's either in Arizona or California, aside from us.

EB:  Now, you can't help but notice right away that your family is strongly identified as Jews.

RC:  Yes.

EB:  In what ways did your family identify as Jews?  Tell me about synagogue and Shabbos celebrations, obviously.  You're all ready for tonight.

RC:  We're all ready for Shabbos.  We've always gone to – we've always been part of basically all the Orthodox temples/shuls in town.  Right now, there are two.  One was a break-off.  So we're part of both.  My parents like going to one that's smaller and little older people.  I like going to the bigger one that has more kids at it.  But ever since I can remember, we've gone to shul, and I used to sit on my dad's lap, play with his tallis, and braid it.  And then I was bat mitzvahed, of course, and my brothers were bar mitzvahed.  Then we always did – my dad would like to go to Friday night services, but we didn't want to go.  Cold, we didn't want to walk.  So we started doing services here, just as a family.  So we do a Kabbalat Shabbat here, which is nice.

EB:  Just for the little – your brothers, you, your mom.

RC:  Yeah, and then usually me and (Elie?) have a friend over.  So just do a little short half-hour Kabbalat Shabbat, singing.  It's nice.  It's fun.  We always light candles.  I've done that ever since I can remember, also.  We do the whole Kiddush, hamotzi – all of that.  Actually, one thing that bothers me about Hamotzi is that my dad takes the bread first.  I don't know, that's always bothered me.  Then, Saturday, we get up, and we go to shul, and we come home.  Very often, we have a bunch of company over, or we go to someone's house.  My mom makes a tremendous amount of food.  We eat all of Shabbos.  And then we make Havdalah.  All the holidays have always been big.  We still do stuff for Hanukkah.  We’re making latkes tonight and getting out our menorahs and everything.  So that's always been something, and also, since I went to a private school that wasn't Jewish, there was always something.  Kids were always asking questions.  When you have those birthdays, I would always bring my own doughnuts or cupcakes or whatever and keep them in the freezer at school because I wouldn't eat their stuff because of Kashrut.

EB:  So you were always answering questions?

RC:  I was always answering questions.  “Can I bless your food?  If I bless your food, then can you eat it?”  I'm like, no, “It doesn't work that way.”

EB:  Did it make you self-conscious?  Did it make you proud?  Or a little of each?

RC:  A little of both, I guess.  I don't really think it ever made me that uncomfortable.  Sometimes, it was kind of funny because people really thought they could bless my food, and then I could eat it.  But they were all – I knew them all since third grade.  Third grade isn't such a discriminatory age, at least not at the school I was at.  It was a private school – very small, close-knit classes.  There were like six people in each class.  So, we were all too good of friends for them to really care too much that I was a different religion.

EB:  Also, maybe all the children there already felt different?

RC:  Yeah, that's a good point.

EB:  Because you had to all overcome difficult challenges and work harder than everyone else.  Did your dyslexia play a big part in who you are today?

RC:  I don't think so.  It was six years, and I definitely developed there.  Those were important six years of my life.  But I don't want to go into early childhood education or anything like that.

EB:  Or special education?

RC:  Or special ed, yeah.

EB:  During the summers, would you go to summer camps that were Jewish at all?

RC:  Yeah.  I always went to Mesorah and Moshava.  So, I did Mesorah, I think, for five summers in New York, and then I did Moshava in Wisconsin for one summer.

EB:  Those are Orthodox camps?

RC:  Yes.

EB:  Is Moshava also Zionist or not?

RC:  I don't know.  I don't think so.

EB:  Not particular.  Just Orthodox.

RC:  Yeah, just Orthodox.

EB:  Your family is kosher, and Shomer Shabbos?

RC:  Yes.

EB:  A hundred percent?

RC:  A hundred percent Shomer Shabbos.

EB:  And [is] your family Zionist in terms of connections to Israel?

RC:  Oh, yeah.

EB:  Very strong?

RC:  Very, very strong.  Yeah, my parents went out there this – I think in November for about three weeks.  Yeah, that's the first place they go every year.  And we usually go out there for Pesach is what we've been doing recently.

EB:  Because of your brother?

RC:  Because of my brother.  But definitely, there's always discussion.  (Elie?) wants to make aliyah now.  My mom wants to go to Israel for a year and work with Ethiopian immigrants.  There's always discussion of Israel.  I've been there probably five or six times in the past, just like three years.

EB:  Did any of your trips to Israel occur without your parents?  Youth group?

RC:  Yes.  Yeah, senior year at New Jew [New Jewish High School] you have an option second half of the year to go to Israel or to do an internship.  So what I actually did was I did a month in Israel and then I did an internship when I came back.  So, I came back a few weeks before the big group came back.

EB:  Your month in Israel, I assume, wasn't just touring.

RC:  No, I think there was eleven or seventeen of us that went.  And we go with a program called N'siah.  It's based in Israel.  We're with Israeli students who are there.  First, we hiked through the Negev for two weeks, which was my favorite place in the entire world.  Actually, before we went to Israel, we went to Poland and saw the concentration camps and everything, and then we went to Prague for a weekend and cooled off there a little bit.  And then we went to Israel.  So that was really powerful, especially because my grandmother on my mom's side, to see all that, and then to go to Israel right after seeing all that was amazing.  Some of the group, there was probably like thirty of us that went to the Poland part, and then a bunch of people came back home and didn't go to Israel, and they had a much harder time dealing with everything they had seen in Poland because when you go to Israel afterward, and you see that the Jews are still thriving and they're doing great, it's very calming.  When we arrived there, everyone felt so much more settled about what we had seen.

EB:  Makes sense.

RC:  Then, we worked at some kibbutzes, worked with some kids.  Mainly the program was a group program.  We traveled around, did all sorts of group bonding activities, theater stuff, reading the Talmud, acting it out, reading the Tanakh – all different things like that.  It was a really, really fun program.

EB:  Sounds wonderful.  At Clark, are you involved with Hillel?

RC:  Yeah.  They have actually a pretty good Hillel, even though it's a small school.  We have Pesach seders.  We had a sukkah.  They have Friday night services.  They have dinners often.  So, it's actually pretty active, even though it's not big.  I don't know if it's my class that has a lot of Jews, but half of my class, I think, is Jewish.  

EB:  That's outrageous.  Wow.  Do you take an active role at Hillel or just participating?

RC:  I just participate more.  I've led services before with a couple friends a few times, but it's not a regular thing for me.

EB:  Are you a freshman?

RC:  No, I'm a sophomore.

EB:  You're a sophomore.  Now you're young.  So, I know your relationship to Judaism; I'm sure it's gone through changes.  But it'll go through many more, trust me.  So, how has your relationship to Judaism changed over time, given that you're nineteen or twenty years old?

RC:  Right.  I'd say when I was younger, very young, I was more religious.  I don't really think it was private school so much; it was more my parents were pressuring me and my brothers so much to be more religious that he really rebelled the most.  He was older than me, and he went completely opposite.  He would go out and eat cheeseburgers and come back and be like, “I had the best cheeseburger,” just to make them upset.  So, he took it all the way to the extreme.  Then that definitely caused me to be like, “Why am I doing this stuff?  Why do I have to keep kosher?”  So, I went through a period of that.  And then, in high school, since New Jew is pluralistic, I didn't really know about the Orthodox movements or the Reform or Reconstructionist because my parents always tried to keep us within the Orthodox.  So, I learned a lot more about that, and I guess now I would identify more as Conservative because I have trouble identifying as Orthodox just because of all the women suppression, I guess, or repression, not really sure what the word is, but they don't really count in a minyan, and they're not supposed to make Kiddush, and they can't lead the mezuman, things like that.  So, because of those issues, I can't identify as Orthodox.  And how, in shul, they have to sit in the back and sit behind things.  All those things really bother me.  Then, going to Israel, a lot of people in Israel aren't Orthodox also.  So, that made me think that the Jews who are living in Israel aren't – obviously, there's a reason for that.  So, I think that I would identify now as Conservative, and I don't really ever see myself identifying as Orthodox just because of those roles.

EB:  The restrictions on women.

RC:  Yeah, restrictions.

EB: Well, that's a pretty important transformation and realization.  We are on the cusp of talking about your activism, but not quite yet.  This is going to be tougher because before, I asked you to just talk about your experiences.  It doesn't have to be your personal experiences but your activism with combating teen violence and battered women in the Jewish community.  How are Jewish values reflected or incorporated into your activism?

RC:  Okay, my parents have always ingrained in me that “Do unto others as you'd want done unto you.”  So, ever since we were little, we've had tzedakah boxes.  And after a year, I think Rosh Hashanah time, we'll count it all out.  Me and my brother will get to pick a place we want to send the tzedakah money to.  So, there's always been a big overtone of charity, helping others, and volunteering.

EB:  Your family then, your parents, were role models for gemilut hasadim [acts of loving-kindness] and tzedakah.

RC:  Yes, and tzedakah.

EB:  What specific things did they involve you in when you were young in terms of gemilut hasadim, let's say?

RC:  They put me in a program – Panim el Panim.  I don't know if you've heard of that.  So, I did that in high school, which is a Jewish leadership training program.  You go to Washington.  So, they were involved with things in the shul.  My dad was the president.  He was president in Arizona of a shul, and then here, he's been on the board numerous times.  My mom was always doing different tzedakah projects at work because she works for the BJE [Bureau of Jewish Education].  So they're always doing –

EB:  What's her first name?

RC:  Naomi.

EB:  Oh, yeah.  I know who she is.

RC:  Oh really?  That's funny.  So she's always doing projects and things like that.  And they've just always – if you see someone who isn't as wealthy, they'll always talk to me about it.  They've always been very vocal and talked about other countries and what's wrong there, and they'll cut out articles and read them to us about what needs to change in this country and that country and America.  My grandparents, too, have always encouraged us to give charity and to volunteer.  My mom really wants me to go to Israel and volunteer over the summer or something.  So, I might do that one summer.

EB:  With Ethiopian Jews?

RC:  She doesn't want me to do it; she wants me to actually do it in a domestic violence shelter since that's what I'm interested in.  She said she could find me the connections down there because she's down there so much.  So, it's always been a big part of my family.  It's always been a very much talked about issue, helping others, tzedakah, all that.  So, it’s definitely been engraved in me to do that.

EB:  And they lived it.  They weren't just preaching, which is really important.

RC:  No, they definitely lived it.

EB:  And you lived it.

RC:  Yeah.

EB:  In terms of your role models, then, I'm guessing you could say your parents?  I'm wondering are there any other role models, Jewish, non-Jewish, women, men?  I'm open.

RC:  Okay.  Certainly, my parents, just because I grew up with them, had very strong values and morals of how you treat people on the small level in your community and also nationally and how you treat people internationally.  But definitely I think there are a few teachers that were role models at New Jew.  Actually, my favorite teacher, Mr. Grossman, left, unfortunately.  But he was certainly one of my role models.  He came from a family like mine, became Conservative for similar reasons – some other reasons too, but for similar ones.  We would just have great conversations.  So, he was certainly a role model.  There were a couple of teachers at New Jew that were like that.  Since it was a small school, you had a very close relationship with your teachers.  I'd also say probably at camp, some of my counselors were.  I started going so young.  You always look up to your counselors anyway, and they were always young Jewish girls.  So, they were certainly role models, too.

EB:  For activism or for just being a decent human being?

RC:  I think just for being a decent human being.  We would do a project in the summer, raise funds, gather clothes, things like that.  So we'd have little camp projects.  So, that definitely also set a precedent in my life.  We even do it at camp.

EB:  I don't think there's been a moment in your life that you haven't been involved.  It sounds like winter, summer, or a young child.  Wow, wonderful.  All right.  Here we go.  Can you just tell your story in terms of your experiences getting involved with anti violence work?

RC:  Okay.  I guess it all goes back to eighth grade.  I started dating a boy.  I dated him from eighth grade through the end of twelfth grade, so five years.  And in eighth grade, he was fine.  We went to school together, and things were pretty good.  We were really, really young.  Then, when high school came, he stayed at the school and went to the Carroll School through high school, and I left and went to New Jew.  That's when I started noticing problems because he didn't want me to make new friends.  He didn't want me to talk to the boys.  All those issues started coming up.  He wanted me to spend all my time with him.  Then, in tenth grade, things progressed some more, and he stopped letting me take the bus to school because there were boys on the bus.  So, he would pick me up at school, pick me up at my house, and drive me basically every day.  He started also doing my clothing shopping because he didn't want me wearing revealing clothing or clothing that anyone else would like.  So, I had clothing at his house in his room that I was allowed to wear when I was just with him, like my normal clothing, and then I had my whole other wardrobe of what he wanted me to wear, like to school.  So that became an issue, and as time went on, he isolated me more and more from my friends, from my family.  He got me a cell phone, and at first, it was really sweet.  He wanted to be able to talk to me.  It became just like a leash.  I had to call him on the hour.  If I didn't pick up, it was a huge fight.  I would have to leave class in the middle.  I had to call him multiple times a day, so I'd have to leave class and call him and just be like, “Hi, I'm at school.  Okay, bye.  Have a good day.”  And just always had to be checking in with him.  I really stopped doing anything with friends.  He made me stop participating in the school plays, which I had been acting since third grade, because it was taking up too much time, and he didn't like that I was backstage with other boys.  So, this just went on and on and on.  The calling.  He would get very angry.  We would get into fights about if I was ten minutes late coming from somewhere – anything.  He never became physically violent towards me, but he became very physically intimidating towards me.  We'd get in fights, and he'd punch holes in the wall right behind my head.  So, he wasn't punching me, but it was like, “Take one more step, and it'll be you.”  So, he used definitely physical intimidation a lot.  The main thing was starting in eleventh grade, probably.  Whenever I threatened to break up with him, he would threaten suicide.  Basically, the second half of eleventh grade and first half of twelfth grade, every other night, I'd be driving down to where he lived because his house – it's like his house, his yard, and then there's train tracks.  So, he would call me up and be sitting on the train tracks, and he'd say, “Unless you come down here, I'm waiting for the next train.”  Basically, every night, I would break up with him, tell him I didn't want to talk to him anymore, and then an hour later end up down in his town.  He had this great little cycle that he got me into.  I was just too afraid that he was really going to do it.  Then, senior year, I was always in peer leaders during high school, so we arranged different – you had drug awareness week, alcohol, we had AIDS – all different weeks.  I knew that I was in a bad relationship, but my friends – I only had probably like three or four best friends who were still even trying to hang out with me because I never could go out, and the few times I did, he would go with me, and we would just be fighting, and no one could talk to me.  If a guy looked at me, he would go off on them.  I really just had a couple of friends that I'd known my whole life who were sticking by me.  I'd come into school every morning crying, half asleep because I had spent the night in his town talking to him, trying to get him off the train tracks.  So, they'd always be like, “The bad times outweigh the good times.  You need to break up with him.”  I'd always be trying, but I never could follow through because of his suicide threats.  So finally, in twelfth grade, I brought up to the peer leaders that we should do teen dating violence awareness.  I knew that there was some other stuff going on in school that I had seen that weren't good relationships either.  We started educating ourselves, and that's when we called the Support Committee for Battered Women, which is now known as REACH.  They just changed their name.  They came in, and they trained the twenty of us as peer leaders on warning signs and the resources and what to do, how to help a friend, how to make an awareness week, and everything like that.  During the training, just everything – all the warning signs – isolation, jealousy, possessiveness – all the things were just, “Oh, that's me.  That's me too.  Oh, that's me too.  Wait, that's also me.”  So then, senior year, that's why I decided to do my internship with them.  I wanted to go and work with them, learn more about it, and figure out what was going on.  Since I've always helped people, I thought that that would help me, too, to help them.  So, we ended up – peer leaders made a whole awareness week at school.  We had statistics up, posters.  We brought the Support Committee in.  They did some discussion groups.  They did a dating game which was supposed to show you dangers and things like that.  That's just set up as a game, so it's more interactive.  We got actually a pretty good response from the school.  A lot of kids that you didn't think – because they're in a Jewish school and everything, so no one thinks it happens there, but talking about it brings us questions.  We made a little question box.  You could drop them off anonymously, and we'd answer them either through the school publications or just have – we had Beit Midrash every Wednesday.  So people made announcements, or there were little discussion groups.  We would answer people's questions like that.  “Is this right?  I don't know if this is right.  It sounds like what you were talking about?”  Things like that.  So, I went to the Support Committee, or REACH – I still call it that.  I started working with them.  I went through the hundred-hour training program that they have so that I could start working in their shelter.  The Support Committee has a ninety-day emergency shelter.  It has a twenty-four-hour hotline.  Then, it has the outreach part and all the office stuff, too, separate from the shelter.  So first, I started working in the office, and I shadowed a couple of people who were doing outreach.  So we would go into schools, into camps, boys and girls clubs, anything like that, and do presentations to them about basically what they had come and done for me at peer leaders, about the dangers, the warning signs, what to do, all that.  In every presentation, I would leave and just cry to the people that I worked with because I'd be giving examples.  I'd be like, “Well, let's say this could be an example of jealousy.”  Then I would be giving a real example from me, and it was just ringing way too clearly for me to keep presenting like that.  My coworkers recognized right away that I was in a bad relationship because my cell phone at work would be ringing every ten minutes.  They're like, “Who's that?”  I'm like, “My boyfriend.”  “Who's that?”  “My boyfriend.”  They'd figured it out within the first week.  I was talking to them about it and talking about how I could get out of it.  I promised myself basically that I wasn't going to let myself continue to pretend that I knew what to do and everything and tell all these people what to do, and I was still in this relationship.  But while I was there, it bothered me that we never went into any shuls.  We would go into churches.  We would talk to the clergy members.  We never went and talked to the rabbis.  We never went and talked to the Jewish schools.  We never went and talked to anything like that.  I started a huge outreach, I guess, to the Jewish community, and I contacted all fifty synagogues in our service area, sending them letters, sending them pamphlets, sending them resources, sending them posters, sending them more letters, calling them, just harassing them basically, like, “Listen, there's a problem.”  And I was so upset at the responses I got.  Almost all of them, the rabbis, were like, “It's not a problem here.  It's not a problem here.  Thank you.  It's nice that you're doing that, but it's not a problem here.  We'll call you if something comes up.  Thank you.”  Basically, probably forty-seven out of the fifty, that was the response.

EB:  This is the last few years?

RC:  Yes, this was my senior year.  So, that’s two years ago.  “That's not a problem here.  Oh, yeah, we know what domestic violence is.  No, it doesn't happen here.  No.  Thank you, though.  Keep up the good work, but it doesn't happen here.”  So, I sent out more letters harassing them and everything.  And finally, I got a bunch of them to start posting our hotline number.  Within weeks, our hotline was bombarded with Jewish women calling.  “I go to this synagogue.  I go to this synagogue.  I saw the sign.”  Finally – blah, blah, blah.  Half of them would call up, and they'd say, “I went to my rabbi, and he told me to just go home and work it out.  It's something that – you just need to keep the family.”  Then I would talk to these rabbis, and they'd be like, “It doesn't happen here,” and I'm like, “Well, you know what?  Actually, our hotline is ringing off the hook with people calling from the synagogues that have the posters up.”  They still didn't really want it in.  Some places were like, “Well, maybe we'll do a little education program, but we don't want to make a big fuss about it because then it'll seem like it's a big issue here.”  I don’t know.  Just a lot of resistance.  I ended up continuing my internship from the end of senior year through that summer.  I kept working there, and I worked in the shelter, and I answered [the] hotline.  I kept going with the shuls.  Then I contacted the Jewish youth groups, NCSY [National Conference of Synagogue Youth], USY [United Synagogue Youth], NFTY [North American Federation for Temple Youth] – what are the other ones? – BBYO [B'nai B'rith Youth Organization] – contacted all of them to try to get programs in there.  We ended up doing a couple of mother-daughter Sunday events for shuls, which was good.  It wasn't the biggest turnout.  Probably just fifteen people, which was very good considering all the resistance that was put up.  Then, freshman year, I wasn't too involved with them because I was away at school.  During the break, I went back over last winter break and worked at the shelter and worked in the office some more.  Sent out more letters to the shuls, reminding them to contact us for more outreach.  I've gone to a couple more and done some programs.  Then, last summer, the summer after my freshman year in college, I worked there again, and I became actually staff rather than just a volunteer.  So, I had more responsibilities at the shelter and working with the women, and I started doing individual one-on-one counseling for people that weren't living in the shelter but that were living in our service area.  It just turned out that three of the women I was counseling were Jewish.  Just randomly, they were Jewish.  That became more obvious to me that it really is – I knew it was a problem in the Jewish community because I had been there.  But these rabbis, when they would tell me it wasn't a problem, I was so frustrated.  I can't tell them who I'm working with, obviously, because it's all confidential.  But some of the rabbis that I knew were their rabbis would be like, “It's really not an issue here.  We really don't need to bring it up and make a big deal about it at our shul.”  I’d be like, “But you do.”  The rabbis didn't even understand it.  These women would come back and be like, “He just told me to go home and think about it and not to break up the family peace.  Shalom bayit.  Everything like that.”  So, I'd always stress to them that the husband had broken the shalom bayit well before.  Filing for the divorce and everything like that they couldn't even do.  First of all, they can't have the get, they can't get the get, but that it wasn't wrong.  That was a huge thing to talk about with the women, the three women that were Jewish because they had so much guilt in terms of breaking the marriage contract.  I did the one-on-one counseling, which I loved because I'm a psych [psychology] major, and so I want to do the counseling aspect, too.  And then, that summer, I also started working in the courts.  We have an advocacy program, and I would go into – I think we're in Waltham, Woburn, and Concord courts.  So, I worked in the Waltham courts three days a week for the morning, from 9:00 to 1:00, and that's when all the emergency restraining orders come in.  So, I worked out of the DA's [district attorney] office as a victim advocate.  Yeah.  It was a very eye-opening experience, but I worked Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings.  Monday mornings are always crazy because all the emergency ones from the weekend get put over into Monday, so you get the regular Monday morning ones plus all the emergency ones that are done by the police over the weekend.  The office was just always flooded.  I was always talking to multiple women at once, even guys.  I realized how much more it's an issue for guys as well [and] how many guys came in saying their girlfriend or their wife did this.  Sometimes, it was even nastier stuff that the women would do, but it just became more real that it does actually happen to guys as well.  Since I was in Waltham, I got a bunch of Jewish people, too, who would come in and ask if there was a Jewish hotline they could call.  I worked with Kol Isha, so I'd give them that hotline.  I'd worked with Nicole Lesser.  That's how I met her.  So, just working in the courts, first, I would sit down with them, talk to them, figure out what was going on, and help them fill out all the papers to get the order.  Then I'd go with them before the judge, and they'd talk, but I'd stand behind them and coach them, prep them before they go into the courtroom, what they're going to ask, what they need to tell, what's important, what to write on the affidavit, everything like that.  Then, the judge would ask me questions, what do I recommend, what do I see this as, things like that.  This is clearly domestic violence, X, Y, and Z.  He needs to have no contact, no abuse, no whatever the order was going to be.  So, I'd help these people get these orders, and they would always come in so frazzled-looking, and by the time they'd left, they just seemed much more calm.  They had a court order for this person to stop.  It became really hard because I started noticing people coming in repeatedly.  They would go home, and the husband or boyfriend would call, and they'd apologize – “I'm sorry.  I love you.  I'll never do that again.”  And they would drop the restraining order.  A week later, they'd come back and say, “He did it again.”  So, I was like, “I know he did it again.  This is a cycle.  That's what's going to happen.”  I'd have to sit down with them again and talk them through it.  We had a whole resource book there with diagrams of the cycle and the ways of abuse and the apologies and the remorse and how it builds back up and everything.  We'd give them our hotline number, obviously, and just help them through the whole process.  So, doing that definitely got me very involved very quickly in the field.  I love that work.  I want to do victim advocacy work.  I'm hopefully planning to go to law school to do that kind of work because I had a counseling piece in the office before they went into the courtroom, as well as in the courtroom, talking to the judge, helping them.  Also, a lot of the cases, the abuser would come to the courthouse, too, because they have the right to be there and stand up there on the other stand, which is only ten feet away from the victim, saying, “This is lies,” that “she does this to me,” this and that, going on and on and on.  So, that can be very hard for the victim.  I stand between them, and then the court officer stands between them.  That's always extremely upsetting.  The guy will start crying on the stand, talking to the woman, “I'm sorry, sweetie.  I love you.   I love you.”  I just have to keep being like, “Remember what he did to you this weekend.  Remember what he did to you.  Remember what he did last week.  Remember what he did two weeks ago,” and just keep coaching them so that he can't get to her.  I keep saying “he” and “she,” but there certainly were numerous, numerous men that came in.  Probably every other day, there was a man, which I did not expect at all.  I thought it was mainly going to be women.  So, there were many more males.  The judges were pretty good.  They're used to our program being in there because it's part of the Support Committee's program.  So they're used to the domestic violence advocates that come in, and they understand it pretty well, understand the cycle and everything like that and the dangers of it.  Most of the judges were pretty good with their rulings and pretty understanding of the patterns and everything.  That summer, I also continued my outreach to the shuls – sent out more letters.  I started actually making appointments to talk to people.  I was like, “Well, let me just come in and show you our material.”  They didn't really want me to, but I started anyway, pushing myself in and going and talking to the youth coordinators at the shul, things like that.  We got a couple of programs going, which was great, going in there.  The first couple times, the kids were very quiet about it, and I noticed this also in some of the private schools, that they don't really want to talk about it.  When we go into the city, into Boston, they're all raising their hands, [saying] “My father” – yelling out stuff.  They know what's going on.  They're ready to talk about it.  They live in close quarters.  But when you go into the Jewish community or the very private upper-class community, it's very closed doors, very hush-hush, don't talk about it.  But by the end of every training, I haven't done a single one yet where I haven't had people come up afterward and make disclosures – this happens to my friend, my cousin, my boyfriend, me, my mom, whoever it was.  We got just as many by the end in the Jewish communities and the private schools as we did in the city.  It took them a lot more time.  And during the training, they normally just sat there, really shocked that someone was actually talking to them about this because they weren't used to that.

EB:  It's the taboo.  It's the stigma.

RC:  Oh, it's very taboo.  They're not supposed to talk about it.  They're not supposed to know about it.  So, I think that summer – since I had been out of my relationship then for about a year – I started using my story in the training.  So, we do our whole 101 basically, teen dating violence – what it consists of, warning signs, factors, everything like this.  Then I'd ask, “So, is this real?  Does this happen?”  A lot of times, they'd be like, “No,” or “It happens every now and then to stupid people.”  I'd be like, “Let me tell you something.  I'm a Jewish girl.  I went to a private school,” and tell my story.  Then they're all like – you just look around the room, and they're all just totally shocked that this young girl is up there just being like, ‘Well, this happened to me.  So, what are you going to say now?”  That was definitely a very effective tool.  People would come up, and it just created more dialogue.  People would ask more questions about it.  It was just easier, I guess, for them to talk about a specific incident, too.  That makes it easier.  In the Jewish community, it helped that I was Jewish, that I had done NCSY, that I had gone to Maimonides, and that I go to shul and I'm Orthodox.  It just brought it home to them that it does actually happen in the Jewish community and that the Jewish mothers, when we go to the shuls for the mother-daughter thing, would just be in awe that a Jewish girl was talking about this.  They'd be whispering, “This happened to my niece.”  And it was so hush-hush.

EB:  These weren't all Orthodox?

RC:  These weren't all Orthodox.  No, the whole spectrum.  But just the way the disclosures came in, too, was different; it was just very secretive.  It was like, “I have to talk to you in the corner, and I have to talk quietly; no one can hear me.”  But when we went to the inner city, it was yelling out in the middle of the thing, “My boyfriend does this,” and “My best friend's boyfriend does that,” whatever.  Just the way those came in even, you could see that it's just extremely closed door.  It's not talked about.  It's not brought up.  It's not okay to be brought up.  So, that was very impactful to tell my story.  That opened up a lot more.  And then, over this break, I'm going to be going back and working there.  I'm starting Sunday.  I'm going to work in the shelter.  I'm going to be contacting all the shuls again and trying to get some more programs in there and set things up for the summer.  So we're going to try – I think this summer I'm going to work there also, and I'm going to try to get into some of the Jewish schools and set up programs.  Excuse me.  I had started trying to contact them.  They were a bit more receptive actually than the shuls because they'll bring in an alcoholic or something so they can do it under the thing of social problems.  So, that was getting in more with the schools, so hopefully, this summer, I'll make some headway with that.

EB:  But it's you alone doing this outreach to synagogues?

RC:  Yeah, it's me and the office.  I'm the one that's doing it.  People that are doing outreach help me do the presentations and help me do all that.  But I'm the one writing all the letters, calling them, harassing them, and going to talk to them because it's my project, basically, that I head.

EB:  I still have to ask you.  This happens to people all the time, and it happens, and then they move on.  But for some reason, there's something inside you that impelled you to take this out there and help other people.  I'm wondering if you can at all put your finger on what that is.  What motivated this path for you?

RC:  Okay.  I think it's a couple of things.  One is just that it's always been ingrained in me that when you want something changed, you change it.  When there's a problem, you do something about it.  My mother, even though she does the whole Orthodox woman thing and has my dad do Hamotzi and everything like that, she's a very strong woman, and when something's wrong, she gets on the phone, and she's the one who talks to them and convinces them and gets her way.  I’ve always seen my mother that when something's the matter, Dad doesn't need to take care of it; she can do it herself.  She's very strong and very outspoken, very well-spoken.  That was definitely always – if you want something changed, you need to do it because no one else is going to.  And also just that during my whole five years, the kids I was with didn't get it.  They didn't understand because they just hadn't had the education.  They knew that it wasn't right.  They were like, “But you're not happy.”  And I was like, “I know I'm not happy.”  But they didn't know what to say, what to do, what it meant, or what was really involved in it, so they couldn't really help.  That's why I want these kids to be educated so that when it happens to them or their friends, they can be more active.  I had my three good friends who – I called them every night.  They'd be like, “Call me when you get back.  I know you're going to his house.  Call me.  I just want to know you're okay.”  That was great, but they didn't really – that was the extent of what they could do just because they didn't really understand the issue.  It was never talked about.  It was never brought to their attention before.  My mom definitely didn't like him.  My parents hated him.

EB:  I was going to ask about this at some point.  I have to ask – they saw you driven to –

RC:  Right.  They saw it, and they didn't like him at all.  My mom would always – when he would call me, and I'd be cooking with her in the kitchen or something, and she could hear him just screaming at me about nothing, that I didn't call him, I was five minutes late calling him, whatever it was – the stupidest things.  She could hear him.  She'd always be like, “He has a really bad temper.  You don't seem too happy.”  I was very moody for the last couple of years of it, and I would take it out on my parents because either I was with him or at my house going to sleep.  I couldn't be anywhere else.  So, I'd come home.  They'd ask me a question.  I'd be like, “I don't know,” just because I'd just been with him for five hours and been yelled at.  So, they noticed a huge change in my personality because normally, I'm very laid back and very calm and respectful, and I just wasn't.  I was very edgy and very, just easily agitated.  So, they would try to talk to me about it, but I would just deny it to them.  I'd be like, “Leave me alone.  I don't want to talk to you about it.  It has nothing to do with you.  Stay out of it.”  My dad didn't really get involved in it too much, but my mom was always like, “I don't like him.  He has a really bad temper.”  She would wait up for me whenever I'd go over to his house.  She lost a lot of hours of sleep over that.  I know that.  She always just looked so worried when I came home, and I would just be like, “I'm fine.  I'm going to bed.”  Now I feel really bad because –

EB:  You're seeing on my face, being the mother of a teenager.  Sorry about this.

RC:  Oh no, that's fine.  I know that it was hurting her the most of anyone in my family because she was trying.  She knew that it wasn't right, and she knew that I was a different person, that I wasn't happy.  Since she was the one that was really harassing me about it, she was the one that I was the meanest to about it, I guess.  I was more like, “Just leave me alone.  It's not your issue.”  Even though she'd wait up for me every night and try to talk to me, I would just go in my room, slam my door, get in my bed, and just not want to have anything to do with her.  Maybe if she had had more education, she could have been a little more vocal, “This is a warning sign,” and maybe brought it to my attention earlier.  I knew it was a problem, but I didn't know there was a name for it or if there were actual categories of jealousy and possessiveness that his actions fit under.  The peer leaders, had they been educated, maybe when I was a freshman, maybe that would have helped cut it down by four years because I would have known all the warning signs, and I would have had all that information.  I guess my main motive was just that the people around me when I was going through it didn't know what it was or what to do or couldn't really help.  The main support that I had to finally get out of it was at my job because they knew about it.  They're all educated in it, and they could sit down with me and be like, “He did this, right?”  And I'd be like, “Yeah.”  They're like, “Okay, this fits under this.  Do you see how that plays into this?’  And they could piece it all together for me, and I could see it all.  So, just having these other students that I can train and show them and give them actually an example that they can piece it all together for them when they had my story, they can place all the labels and the patterns we’re showing to them.  When we do the DV101, I hope that they're going to be able to be more active when someone near them is being affected.  I guess that's my main motivation.

EB:  Thank you.  That was really, really a great answer.  You're doing wonderfully with these answers.  I just want you to know.  It's not easy.  This next one's a real doozy.  What role does your work play in how you define yourself [and] how you see yourself?

RC:  Definitely see myself as an activist and very headstrong, very determined, very persistent.  This field has always been pushed back by every community, and finally, some are being more open to it.  I guess I've always taken on challenges, and I like challenges.  That might be part of the reason I've taken on the Jewish community because it's such a challenge.  I'm involved in it also.  So, that affects me.  I definitely would see myself as very active and very strong – equality for men and women.  That's my biggest pet peeve.  Even if it's a healthy relationship, the guy does all certain stereotyped roles, and the girl does all the things.  It bothers me.  I have friends who – their boyfriend will sit there and watch a football game and drink beer, and we'll go do his laundry and cook him dinner.  And I'm like, “Aah!  Make him get up and do something.  You're not his servant.”  So, I definitely see myself as, I guess, a feminist.  I don't believe that women are higher than men, as sometimes, in the feminist field, that gets confused.  But definitely, just equal roles, equal rights, and just respect between your partner, your friend, or whoever.  So, my work has definitely made me just more conscious of everyone.  I analyze every relationship I see.  At school, I work with a professor, and I do couples research with him.  So, just coming from my field, I can recognize all the manipulations and the mind games of the guys that are probably abusers.  We code videotapes of couples' interactions.  So, it's made me just very aware and very active.  When I just see someone, like one of the people that works in our cafeteria who swipes your card – I don't know what her name would be – the cashier basically.  She, one day, came into work, and she had a big black eye.  I saw her, and most people don't just get black eyes from nowhere.  So, all my friends kept telling me, they're like, “Do you see that lady?”  Because everyone at my school knows me because I've spoken at my school, and freshman year, people would – half my dorm ended up coming to me at some point, just talking to me.  So, people would come up to me and [said], “Do you see that lady that's working in the cafeteria?  Look at her eye,” before I had seen her.  And finally, I saw her.  I went up and talked to her.  I was like, ‘You don't have to tell me anything.  I just want to tell you that I noticed this.  I have a hotline card.”  I always have them on me from my work.  I gave her a hotline card.  I was like, “I do this work.  I've been in your situation.  Obviously, I didn't get a black eye, but if you want someone to talk to, call the hotline, talk to me.  Feel free to.”  She talked to me a couple times.  She called the hotline.  Her boyfriend's in jail right now.  He had gotten out, and that's when she had gotten the black eye, but he's back in jail now.  So, I'm known as someone who knows this topic.  My friends will come up to me and say, “My aunt never comes to see us, and her husband doesn't let her.”  Or there was an article published in the Sharon Advocate about when I was honored by the Celtics, and I got people in Sharon – random people I didn't know – calling my house to talk to me that were just like, “Hi, I have this daughter who's going through this.  I understand you went through it.”  Just random people in Sharon who have never had someone who lives in Sharon who's a teenage girl, who's from a nice family, if they live in Sharon.  I've gotten many calls, many, many calls, just from that one article that was published.  Some people just ask about it, but mainly people that were like, “Yeah, this is going on with my daughter.  It sounds similar.  It sounds similar to my mother,” whatever it is.

EB:  With these phone calls, how do you respond, typically?

RC:  I respond to them as if I would to the hotline, basically.  Give them resources, talk to them, counsel them, tell them what their options are, help them piece together that it's domestic violence, the different aspects of it, the cycle, everything like that.  Give them the hotline number, tell them that I'm happy to talk to them, or they can call this twenty-four-hour every day of the year.  Every second, there's someone there to answer their call.  Tell them about shelters if they want to go into that.  Tell them about restraining orders if they want that.  I take it like it's a hotline call; tell them all their options [and] what they can do.

EB:  Aside from the resistance from the Jewish community, what have been some of the greatest challenges for you?

RC:  I think even though the article in Sharon was a blessing because so many people were calling and asking about it, it was definitely hard for my parents because it became so public, and it was like, “How did you let this go on in your house?”  They were happy that it was published, but I could definitely tell that they were embarrassed or ashamed or whatever it was that everyone knew then that this had been going on underneath their roof for five years.  So, I'd say that was the hardest thing; I could tell that they didn't feel good about it.

EB:  What about ever feeling hopeless?  There's not less calls coming in.  You know what I mean?  The calls just seem to stay the same, I bet.  Do you ever deal with hopelessness?

RC:  Not really.

EB:  Sorry I mentioned it.

RC:  There are times when you're just like, “This is never going to end.”  But when I look at the women I work with individually, and I see the progress they make, that gives me hope.  When I see the women in the shelters who then, after the shelter, get their own housing, get their kids back in school, and get their new life back on track, that gives me hope.  But there are definitely times when you have the repeat callers that are on the hotline or things like that, that you're just like, “I don't know what else to do.”  So, that can be very frustrating, but I just have to keep reminding myself, “Look at the people that you have affected.  You have gotten these hotline calls, and these people have moved into shelters, and these people have started their life over again.”  I am just trying to remind myself of that.  But it's hard.  There's definitely times when you're just like, “I don't know what else to say to you.  Just leave.  I don't know what else to tell you.”  And so it can be very frustrating.

EB:  I'm sure you acknowledge the courage it takes to leave.  Not everyone has it.  Ultimately, you can't force somebody to get help and get out.  So, they're self-responsible in the end.

RC:  They certainly are.

EB:  So the most rewarding part, I imagine, relates a little bit to what you said when, woman by woman, they get their life back on track.  Could you talk a little bit more about rewards?  What has been the most rewarding for you?

RC:  Sure.  Definitely, the individual working that I've done, whether it's been in court, like at the end of the day when I'm like, “I got ten restraining orders done today.  Ten women hopefully won't be contacted, won't be abused for at least the next year.”  They can renew their restraining order after a year.  I can go home and just be like, “I know there's still millions of women out there, but I've helped ten today.”  And definitely my work.  I met every week with these women for three months for the whole summer – May, June, July, August.  To see their progress was just so rewarding.  They'd come in, and some of them would come in, and they'd just be so at wit's end, they didn't know what's going on or what to do or anything, and by the end, just how much calmer they were and how they had a better understanding of it, and they were helping their kids understand it, and just that it's just so rewarding when you see people that really get it and that you've really affected.  Two of the women filed for divorce and went through with their divorce, got the divorce.  We got restraining orders for them and protective orders for their kids.  So, that's a reward when you see these families that you actually got through to and who actually understood the cycle and understood.  You could actually help them make that change and that movement.  Also, the women in the shelter obviously are extremely rewarding to work with because they're the most desperate.  They've left.  They've gone into hiding, basically.  It's a confidential location.  They can't be contacted basically by anybody.  So, these are the ones that have the most volatile husbands or relationships.  Just working with the kids, these two-year-olds who know what abuse is.  Two-year-olds that if you slam the door, jump and look around.  Just seeing that even infants that we've had in there, they'll start crying, or you'll see their eyes darting around, and they can't even talk yet.  If someone raises their voice, they start crying.  We have a child specialist that works with them, the kids.  Sometimes, I would work with them, just to play with them, and they act out a lot of it in their play and just by the end of their – so, they stay there usually for three months, ninety days, that they understand it more and they're like, “Daddy did that, but not everyone does that.”  We have one male volunteer.  It's mainly females that work there, but just seeing him by the end – at the beginning, most of them won't talk to him.  They're very scared of him.  By the end, they can identify, “Daddy did this, but he's not going to do this just because he's a man,” or whatever.  Just seeing people, I guess, understand what they're going through and have it pieced together for them is really, really rewarding when I can see that.  

EB: [inaudible]

RC:  The children are really hard.  Yeah, that's the hardest part to watch.

EB:  I think I understand how your work has affected others.  Is there anything you don't think you have said about the impact of your work on others?

RC:  I don't think so.  I just really think that it's trying to raise awareness for the people that aren't involved so that they can help people when they see it, and then to help the people that are in it get out of it [and] restart their life.  I guess that would be my impact on people.

EB:  How has being female affected your path toward activism?  You did talk a little bit about being a feminist.  So, obviously, the feminist movement, the women's movement, has affected you, even though it was before your time in a sense that the women's movement began.  Basically, anything that you feel about being a female because we understand males and females can be victims here.  But you were a female victim.  So, there's something there.

RC:  The prevalence is much higher that it's a male abusing a female.  So, I think that was just partially why I was targeted.  Society stereotypes you as being passive.  Do what the guy says.  When he wants you to call him, call him.  When he wants you to wear something else, wear what he wants you to wear.  When he wants you to make dinner, make dinner.  So definitely, just the guys come into court, and it's just as real for the guys, but it just happens much more to the females; it's just much more frequent.  I think it's like one in five teenage girls, by the time they're eighteen, will be in an abusive relationship.  So, just being a female puts you out there.  One in five?  Think of your five closest friends, and then think of your bigger circle.  There's probably fifteen of you, so that's three of you.  That’s not true for the males.  It happens, but not nearly as often.  And I just think that society sets that up for the abusers that this is okay, these women are supposed to respond to you, these women are supposed to do what you want when you want, be under your control, under your demand, and that that's okay.

EB:  No doubt about that.  Men dominate women because they can, and they can get away with it, usually.

RC:  In society, that's okay.  And then it leads to this, and it's not okay.  So, I think that would be the biggest part of me being female is just that they're targeted most because that's what they're set up to be.  They're set up to be easy targets who aren't supposed to fight back, who aren't supposed to have their own opinion, want to do it their own way, want to have their freedom.  They're supposed to depend on the man and listen to the man's orders.  That targeted group.

EB:  Let's say a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old who's not a victim of abuse, isn't even in a relationship [wants] to be an activist in any field.  What advice would you give a person, male or female, really, who wants to make a difference like you have?  What advice would you give, coming from what you've been through as an activist?  What advice would you give to somebody?

RC:  I would tell them first to get very educated in what they want to be an activist about from as many different angles as they can, from the people that are the professionals, the people that are in whatever they're trying to be an activist about, from the political standpoint, from the government, from their community, just try and get as much knowledge, I guess, about what they're trying to be an activist towards or for.  I don't think you can be an activist in something you're not passionate about.  I don't think it would be nearly as effective.  You could try, but I don't think that you'd get your point across the same way.  So, choose something that you can either relate to from a friend or family or that you've seen so much that you're affected by it.  Something like that.  Or if there's something in another country that you want to be an activist about, go there, be there, and see the actual issue.  Don't just understand it from the newspaper and just make your activism on that because what the people there have to say about it is going to be different than what the media here says about it.  I'm going to Nicaragua to do a community program this spring.  We're going there to build houses with this program, Bridges to Community.  From here, you can send them money, you can send them stuff, but going there, I think, is going to be a lot different to actually immerse yourself in the problem.  So get the education and then actually get into it, get the ugly stuff, basically.  Go actually see it so you have more of a motive.  You have more of a passion when you've actually gone and experienced it.

EB:  That's beautiful, perfect.  We are coming to the end.  Sometimes, I don't hit all the right questions.  I always like to ask if there's something that you feel we haven't covered that captures something about you and your activism and the fact that you've taken risks on behalf of others.  It really hasn't been said yet.

RC:  Could you just ask it again?

EB:  Yeah.  I might not have elicited all the responses that you have wanted to offer.  Is there anything else you'd like to say about what you have done, basically taking a risk on behalf of others?  That's what you've done.  Is there anything else that you'd like to say that you feel you haven't said yet?

RC:  I guess just basically summing up what I've said, just that you have to take those risks for others because people didn't take them for me, basically.  And they didn't know how.  They didn't really know what risks to take.  I feel like now I know what my risk options would be what paths I can help guide people down, and because I've come from it, I can see it from their point of view, and I can understand when they're scared or they don't want to do that because I'm like, “I totally understand that.  I wouldn't have wanted to either.  So, let's talk about this option.  Would you be more comfortable with this?”  So I just really think that you have to take those risks because hopefully those people, once they're out of the situation, will be able to look back – people around me didn't know enough.  I want them to know more, and hopefully, they'll educate people.  And it'll keep spreading [and] have a ripple effect.  I came from there, I turned around, [and] I'm helping you because people didn't help me.  You're going to get better, turn around, help people because people didn't help you.  So I guess just you have to take the risks if you're going to have that ripple effect, and that's what I think you need to have to really try and resolve an issue.  I don't think I'm going to end domestic violence in my lifetime or anything like that, but if I can spread it out to my community – that's why I've targeted the Jewish community so much.

EB:  Something in there.  I have a follow-up question actually.  Let's say someone who has not been involved with domestic abuse or teen violence, intimidation of any kind, they've had smooth relationships, they've had no relationships, who knows, can they be as effective as you in the same work?

RC:  I think they could.  There's definitely a certain power in being able to tell my story and use that as a tool.  But again, I think that if they get involved and they go work in a shelter, and they actually get down and see the people that are in the relationships, they could be as effective.

EB:  The other women at REACH, for example.  Are one hundred percent of them people who've been through similar experiences to the people they're counseling?

RC:  No.  I'd say in the ninety percentile have been affected in some way, whether it's been a sister, friend, or cousin.  They've seen it somewhere, basically.  I think in this field almost everyone can think of some relationship that they can try and use as an example.  I think, really to be effective that you just have to get into it; you have to go and actually work in the shelter and really see what they're trying to advocate for.

EB:  You know how some people actually think, well, unless you've been this, this, this, this, this, you can't help someone who's been this, this.  Well, how many people have all those five things, you're gay, and you're Black, and you've been abused, and in a wheelchair or whatever the case may be.

RC:  Right.  I don't think you need to personally live it, but I think you need to live it in a sense that you go and you're among the people that are personally living it.

EB:  Yet the credibility factor might be greater for someone who has been there.  I would have to agree with that, actually.  I couldn't say it's not true.  Your future.  You've got the psychology, you've got the law, you've got this activism.  Are you continuing?

RC:  Oh, yeah.

EB:  There's only one direction now, and that's just more.

RC:  Yeah.  I hope to go to law school and probably do some sort of counseling program, too.  I guess my ideal job type prospect would be like what I did this summer: doing one-on-one counseling with domestic violence victims and then helping them through their court cases.  I don't know if I want to actually be an attorney but more of a victim counselor or victim advocate.  So, not just doing restraining orders but taking on a full case and being the caseworker more.

EB:  This is off the record in a way.  Ever consider becoming a judge or becoming someone in the legislature who makes and amends and maybe makes the laws even better than they are to protect women and other victims?  Have you ever thought of that end of the system?

RC:  Yeah, I've certainly thought about it.  I don't think I could ever be a judge because I'm way too biased.  I would be way too biased.  So, I wouldn't do that.  But I would certainly love to get involved with the laws because the laws aren't nearly where they should be.  They're not developed to any degree.  They're as basic as they can possibly be, as they can possibly get away with.  There are so many loopholes.  It's so basic.  Most people don't even get in trouble for this.  They have written on their record they've had a restraining order against them.  That's it.  I don't know that much about politics and how all the legislature works.  I've had the classes, and I've gone to Washington, but that's definitely something that interests me that I would like to work on.  I don't know if I'd want to be in the legislature, but more of an activist to them, proposing things to them.  I proposed to my high school the summer after I graduated when I was working at the Support Committee.  I proposed to them a new part of their code of conduct to include teen dating violence and specific repercussions and things like that because the school didn't have that.  There were a couple in the school that had problems, and the school just didn't really respond.  I responded because the school didn't respond.  But to get that.  They didn't want to put it in.  I had written a long proposal and a long – exactly what the procedures would be and everything, and they didn't accept that.  They were like, “It makes it seem like there's a big issue here.  It's a Jewish school.  It's a private school.”  That whole thing again.  But they did put a little clause in about it.

EB:  It's a beginning.  Because often, from my point of view as an anthropologist and an older person, there's changing people's ideas through education and contact with them, and then there's changing systems.  Obviously, you have to change victims' ideas.  You have to change their friends' ideas, and I understand that.  But if the system doesn't back that up, it's kind of an uphill battle forever.  That's why this is off the record, but I can't help but respond as a person.  There's both.  You have to work here, wherever it is, and you have to work in the system.  But the system is big.  In the meantime, if you wait for the system, then you have women dying.  I'm wondering about that, too, if you ever had at REACH or anything else it got so bad that you've had deaths?

RC:  There has been a fatality.  It's more in the courts that I've seen it.  There was, I think, one person this summer that was killed.  They got the restraining order and then took it off for whatever reason.  

EB: [inaudible]

RC:  So, the system definitely needs work.

EB:  So that might be you.

RC:  Yeah, I might go that path as well.

EB: Well, I'm ready to wrap this up.  I do have to take a picture and maybe talk about some of your artifacts, but I'll turn this off.

[END OF INTERVIEW]