Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, Director of The Center for Jewish Family Life/Project YES visited Ohr Torah Stone this week to discuss child abuse prevention with some of the network’s principals and program directors. 

Horowitz was in Israel to promote the Hebrew translation of his educational children’s book Be Safe which was distributed as an insert in the Makor Rishon weekly to 30,000 Israeli homes.  One of Orthodoxy’s most vocal advocates for child safety, Horowitz shared with the OTS heads of school how, as a young educator, he realized that the overwhelming majority of students exhibiting self-destructive behavior had been the victims of physical or sexual abuse. On the cornerstone of the idiom “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” he now spends much of his time promoting safety education for young children, and strengthening parent-child communication as a means to rebuff predators.

The conversation with the principals covered topics ranging from identifying abuse to identifying children who have been abused, how to relate to sexual predators, establishment of safeguards and protocols, and more.