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Shana Weiner
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
Courtesy of Shana Weiner
T here’s a reason why slips of paper with domestic abuse
hotlines and support are hidden on the inside of bathroom
stalls at JCCs and synagogues.

Domestic violence is a stigmatized topic within the Jewish commu-
nity and beyond, Shana Weiner believes.

“Th ere’s sort of two approaches that people will respond,” Weiner
said. “One is: It’s not a problem here. Just fl at out, this isn’t something
that Jews do. Th e other is: It’s not our type of Judaism; it’s the other
group.” As the founder and executive director of Dinah, a Philadelphia-
based domestic abuse nonprofi t and legal services center, Weiner, 34,
is concerned with addressing and dismantling that stigma.

Since its founding in 2015, Dinah has provided legal counsel to
domestic abuse survivors, as well as trauma-informed education
workshops to clergy, schools and community leaders. In 2020,
Weiner was honored on Drexel University’s 40 Under 40 list.

Weiner, a South Philadelphia resident and Temple Beth Zion-Beth
Israel member, knew she wanted to become involved in advocating
for domestic abuse survivors from a young age.

Growing up in Annapolis, Maryland, Weiner was an avid student
of taekwondo, earning her black belt at age 10.

“I started when I was 6. I was in this world of very structured, very
controlled, but still, violence,” she said.

As she started climbing the ranks, Weiner enrolled in various
courses, including street fi ghting and women’s self-defense. By 9, she
had an understanding, albeit basic, about violence toward women.

Weiner’s mother is a Holocaust sur-
vivor born in a refugee camp in Austria;
her father’s family fl ed from pogroms
in Russia to the U.S. Her consciousness
of the Holocaust and antisemitism in
Europe as a child further fueled her
desire to address violence.

“I was always very aware that there
was a dark, dangerous world out there,”
Weiner said. “Th ere were people who
needed people to fi ght for them. And
that was it.”
Aft er graduating from the University
of Maryland in 2010 and receiving
her law degree from Drexel University
Th omas R. Kline School of Law in 2013,
Weiner knew she wanted to advocate
for abuse survivors, but upon search-
ing for Jewish organizations doing that
area of work, she found nothing.

Some friends recommended that she
apply to become a Tribe 12 fellow and
pitch a domestic violence organization
with Jewish values and clients in mind.

Aft er a six-month program, Weiner
launched Dinah at the now-Weitzman
National Museum of American Jewish
History in spring 2015.

Th ough Dinah was the fi rst organi-
zation of its kind in the Philadelphia
area, it was slow to gain traction. Th e
#MeToo movement, though originally
founded in 2006, had not yet become
popular. When the movement took off
in 2017, Dinah began to fi nd a place in
the Philadelphia Jewish community.

“I noticed a very clear diff erence
from 2015 and ’16, when I was shop-
ping this around and pitching this pro-
gram, and trying to recruit volunteers
and board members that do publicity
...,” Weiner said. “But back then, I was
getting a lot of, ‘Is this really a prob-
lem?’ and framed not as a rhetorical
question.” To eff ectively serve a majority Jewish
clientele, Dinah — named for the bibli-
cal fi gure Dinah, who was abducted and
raped — is built on Jewish principles
and addresses the specifi c forms abuse
may take in the Jewish community.

For example, a gett, or the document
that allows for divorce in Jewish law, is
brought to a woman by her husband.

Because of the power the man holds
in this situation, gett refusal can be a
manipulation or abuse tactic.

“We would like to get the community
or the court of public opinion, as well
as our civil court systems, to start to
recognize that refusing or withholding
or negotiating a gett with someone ... is
abuse,” Weiner said.

Weiner also outlined the values that
are “baked into Jewish DNA” that may
prevent people from speaking out
about their abusive partner. Survivors
may be concerned about lashon hara,
harmful speech; or shalom bayit, keep-
ing a peaceful home. By speaking ill of
their partner or confronting them in a
verbally or physically violent situation,
a survivor could risk violating their
Jewish principles.

To reach clients, Weiner and her col-
leagues reinterpret those same concepts:
What if keeping a shalom bayit means
fi nding inner peace? What if it means
making sure your children don’t have
to witness one parent abusing the other?
“We put an emphasis on these con-
cepts as a foundation in ways that a lot
of other organizations don’t because, to
an extent, they don’t have to,” Weiner
said. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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