Israeli activist Marva Zohar is on a journey fueled by “unstoppable conviction.” With Kansas City being among her most recent stops along the way, she hopes such passion will resonate as much here as it has across Israel and other parts of the world.
Zohar is founder of an organization known as Ohela, literally translated as “her tent.” The objective of Ohela is to create and sustain a model rehabilitative village — first in Israel and ultimately throughout the world — for women to recover from the trauma of sexual assault. The flagship village will be known as the Land Where Women Heal (LWWH), the Hebrew acronym for which is “AMEN.”
Zohar’s message is neither easy to hear nor for her to tell. She relies on her own narration and poetry to share her experience and recovery process as a victim of gang rape at the age of 12. At the time, the people around Zohar became “silent,” leaving her alone with unstated trauma. She, in turn, while growing up, going to school and becoming a midwife, managed to push the incident out of her memory.
“It’s not like it wasn’t there,” she told The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. “It’s like having a room that’s a mess and you don’t want to deal with it. Then there’s a trigger and you open the door.”
When the trigger was eventually pulled — some seven years after the assault — Zohar suffered mightily both alone and while seeking help from the psychiatric care system in Israel that was at once insufficient and abusive in its own right. Zohar experienced flashbacks, insomnia, waves of fear and nightmares. Several times Zohar tried to commit suicide. While the attempts to take her own life were unsuccessful, a host of Zohar’s close friends and fellow sexual assault victims were. In a three-year span she lost seven friends to suicide.
One of those departed friends left a letter asking others to make possible a safe and caring haven for women to recover emotionally, physically and spiritually from sexual assault and violence. “I made a vow to make that happen,” Zohar said.
Zohar’s vision for Land Where Women Heal is a holistic residential rehabilitation center surrounded by nature and providing communal healing. Women will receive free, evidence-based, trauma-informed care and can expect to stay until recovery is complete. A core aspect of the project is sustainability. The village will include income-generating initiatives such as a school to educate medical professionals about the specific needs of female patients, a birthing center, spas and private spaces for women looking to mourn, to contemplate and to celebrate milestones.
With the inspiration for LWWH imbedded in her being, in January 2018 Zohar embarked on a five-month fundraising journey. She started in Israel by traveling the country visiting homes, synagogues, community centers and places where her message would be heard. A successful crowd-funding campaign, ultimately the largest in Israel history, was launched. In total, fundraising goals in Israel were exceeded and served as a springboard to Zohar’s subsequent visits to England, Europe and now to North America.
While in Kansas City she visited with a small audience the in the home of David and Joanna Slusky. Helping arrange Zohar’s visit to Kansas City was John and Martha Lantos. John Lantos, director of the Bioethics Center at Children’s Mercy Hospital, is a friend of Zohar’s father, a bioethics professional in Israel.
Monetary donations, according to Zohar, are the best way to help LWWH become a reality. She encourages interested persons to visit the Ahela website — www.ohelaenglish.org — and to spread the word through social media channels.
“It is important to me that money for this project not come from one donor, that it would be a crowd effort from society,” said Zohar. “It’s not just about physically having this place. It’s also about having it in our hearts.”