Pilot program aims to help Jewish families navigate divorce with compassion
Divorce First Responder is being marketed to secular as well as practicing Jews of all denominations from Reform to Orthodox, where support is often more limited.
Helping Jewish families navigate divorce in a healthy, holistic way is the impetus behind a unique pilot program set to launch in Pittsburgh sometime this year.
Divorce First Responder is aimed at providing strategies to clergy, mental health workers, lawyers and other professionals to better help divorcing individuals during a deeply stressful time.
The program is open to members of the general Jewish community as well, including those who are divorcing and the family and friends who want to support them, according to presenters Batsheva Ganz, a licensed mental health counselor, and Rabbi Ezra Weinberg, who founded Jews Get Divorce, a network of resources for Jews going through divorce.
“Our program is definitely based off the deep passion Ezra and I both have to try to create change in divorce support within Jewish communities,” said Ganz, who lives in Florida and met Weinberg at a retreat after he separated from his wife. Weinberg, of Philadelphia, was familiar with Ganz’s work through online courses she offered for divorced parents, “and she pulled me into her orbit,” he said.
Their partnership is strictly business and evolved out of a shared belief that dealing with divorce is not just an individual challenge, but a Jewish community responsibility.
“Divorce is a spiritual and social rupture as well as a legal process,” he said. “We want to create many kinds of on-ramps for people to access when going through the process.”
Their concept is based on a whole-person, whole-system approach, Weinberg explained.
“There’s a whole world of divorce coaching out there, including divorce doulas for the separation period, and special resources for high conflict divorces. People need to know they exist.”
A survey they conducted of divorced Pittsburgh Jews indicates the need exists, Ganz said, noting that just over 52% of those queried felt “somewhat supported” by the community while about 38 % felt “not at all supported.”
More than half of survey respondents said they did not seek guidance from a rabbi or religious leader during their divorce, and among those who did, 45.5 % said it was “not helpful at all.”
Weinberg and Ganz favor collaborative divorce, an alternative to litigation in which trained, certified professionals negotiate settlements for their clients outside of court. “We’re big fans of it,” Ganz said. “The legal process can get very messy and expensive and hard to back out of once you start.”
Divorce First Responder is being marketed to secular as well as practicing Jews of all denominations from Reform to Orthodox, where support is often more limited, Weinberg said.
“Divorce is more normal in the non-religious world, and so there are more resources available to unaffiliated Jews. In the religious world, which is so family-centric, there’s a stigma around divorce. It comes with a deep shame that is pushing people away.
“There’s rarely education around the divorce,” he added, “yet it is a central, ancient practice that’s actually sacred.”
Speaking anecdotally, Ganz sees a preponderance of divorce in Jews over 50, and in Orthodox Jews in their 30s and 40s “who married when they were young, had a couple of kids, and then realize that their lives have changed.” Ganz, 43, went through an Orthodox divorce 11 years ago.
Weinberg, 50, a Reconstructionist rabbi, said Jewish clergy don’t routinely receive training on how to deal with couples in crisis.
“In my five years at rabbinical college I did not have units or conversations about family systems,” he said. “Jews are good at handling life moments, like marriage and births. When someone dies, in Judaism we share our pain and suffering, as in sitting shiva and bringing food. Yet there’s no playbook for knowing how to show up for someone getting divorced, and people are floundering.”
Jewish Women’s Foundation is sponsoring Divorce First Responders because of “the innovative thinking at play,” the foundation’s Executive Director Judy Greenwald Cohen said.
“Divorce is a terrible thing for any family to go through, especially women. Household income drops, so there’s often increased financial inequity and stress. Women are usually the primary childcare givers, so the emotional stresses of coparenting fall more heavily on women.
“There’s also the stigma, in some ways, of walking into a synagogue or social group, which can be challenging,” she added. “There are a lot of issues and we want to raise awareness.”
Ganz and Weinberg invite people to email them about their personal experiences with divorce at divorcefirstresponders@gmail.com. PJC
Deborah Weisberg is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
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