As the High Holidays approach, we collectively turn our attention to teshuva, the practice of repenting for our wrongdoings and recommitting to the goodness within us. This is one of the most honest and difficult practices we take on both as individuals and in community, which is especially difficult when an adult or youth in our community has been sexually abused or an adult or youth has sexually abused someone in our community.

Join Sacred Spaces for an important conversation about how we can use the teaching of teshuva to help us respond to sexual abuse and find ways to heal within our communities.

Speaker Bios:

Shira Berkovits (she/her) is President and CEO of Sacred Spaces. A behavioral psychologist with a research background in creating large-scale organizational change, and a background in criminal law, Shira has spent years studying the intersection of psychology and law as related to sexual offending in faith communities. Bringing a uniquely Jewish lens, Shira partners with Jewish leaders to build healthy and accountable institutions, whose culture and daily operations foster sacredness and reduce the risk of harassment, abuse, and other forms of interpersonal harm. In her role as CEO of Sacred Spaces, she has worked with Jewish communities across five continents to prevent, handle, and heal from institutional abuse. Named to The Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 for her pioneering work on abuse prevention, and awarded the JPro 2022 Young Professionals Award, Shira sits on the board of the Academy on Violence and Abuse and is a member of the National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation.

Joan Tabachnick brings nearly 30 years of experience to her work in nonprofit and social change organizations. For the past 20 years she has worked in the field of sexual abuse prevention with a special focus on preventing the perpetration of child sexual abuse. Her most recent work is an NSVRC publication, Engaging Bystanders in Sexual Violence Prevention and is in the process of creating an online course of the same name. She has been recognized as an expert through her publications in peer reviewed journals, award winning public service announcements and public information materials, invitations to participate on national expert panels and frequent requests for expert content advice with media outlets and film.