The shelters are fully occupied; fifty women and approximately 200 children go through Bat Melech’s doors on a yearly basis. In 2011, 52 additional women had to be referred elsewhere due to lack of space. In July 2012, Bat Melech succeeded in receiving the Welfare Department’s approval and through its support, an additional shelter was opened in another city. “We were expecting to fill the new six rooms by the time September and Rosh Hashanah arrived; within a week, the shelter was filled to capacity.”
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RONIT
When she enters the room, a strong dose of energy and confidence follows her closely. She’s quite young, pretty and healthy, speaks clearly, with confidence, and you can notice the serenity in her eyes. A mother to six, she was raised on one of the larger settlements and married very young. After the wedding they lived on a highly-regarded moshav up north. Later they joined a Torah-minded community in a developing town – a classical Religious-Zionist environment. Today, three months after leaving the shelter, she lives in an apartment building. Her windows all have bars for protection. Here she waits for her Get.
“Our first meeting was cute and a bit romantic. We met in the Shuk; he helped me do the shopping and then handed me a piece of paper with his phone numbers. In hindsight a red light should have gone off. So many little lies, so many little insults. I didn’t understand these signs or, perhaps, pushed them out of my mind. My head was in the clouds and I felt like I was in seventh-heaven.
“Immediately after the wedding he began to say things like ‘You are worthless. You are less than a rag.’ And then, after our first child was born, he began to hit me. Once it was because the carrots were not sliced as he liked. He stamped his foot on my toes, grabbed the carrots and threw them into the garbage can. Handing me another carrot, he ordered me to cut it the way he wants. The baby was crying and I needed to nurse it but he couldn’t care less. He demanded that I stand at the kitchen counter and cut the carrots while he was watching. From there on, things just became worse: kicks, pinches, dragging me by the hair, punching me in the face and body. Days on end he would not allow me to drink anything because I was ‘being punished for not behaving properly.’ If I spoke to anyone on the phone, he ordered me to raise the volume and turn on the speaker because he wanted to hear everything that was said.
“Outside of the home I was a successful woman, a business manager who did quite well. At home I was a weak and useless rag-doll. The ‘split image’ of who I was is simply astonishing. Only at a much later stage, when I was already at the shelter, was I willing to recognize myself as an abused and beaten wife. At Bat Melech I came to understand that in reality there were two Ronits – the Ronit of the outside world and the Ronit of the home. I was the only one who brought in an income, as he was unable to keep a steady job. However, he controlled every penny I brought in. He kept all of the checks and the credit card. He didn’t allow me to pay any bills and I had to beg him every morning for enough money to take public transportation to work. Every so often he would disappear for days, leaving me at home with one or two diapers, and an empty refrigerator, without milk or food for the children.