Book highlights domestic violence in Orthodox Jewish community

Orange Grove author Marilyn Cohen de Villiers about her novel, Beautiful
Family.

AS THE nation is still wondering what really happened the night Oscar
Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, an Orange Grove
author Marilyn Cohen-De Villiers launched her novel entitled Beautiful
Family which has similar scenarios as the Pistorius case.

Cohen-De Villiers was talking about her book at Schaffler's Under The Trees
Garden Cafe in Lyndhurst. She emphasised that it is a fictional work about
the problem of abuse in Jewish families which is normally kept under wraps.
She however stressed that she was not attacking the Jewish community, but
highlighting that there are also abusive partners in the community from
which she hails.

She said, "Normally we think abuse happens in poor townships not in a
wealthy, religious Jewish family."

The book is set in the north eastern Johannesburg suburbs and mentions areas
such as Louis Botha Avenue and Sandringham. It is about the mysterious death
of a young woman who was married to a wealthy businessman and prominent
politician.

Cohen-De Villiers said, "The book is about how she died and what happened to
the family before she died. We don't know whether it was murder, suicide or
[if she] died of natural causes as there were no signs of a break-in or any
physical evidence. As a reader you later realise that there was abuse in the
family which is not expected in the Jewish community."

She added that it took her six months to draft the book, and a year to get
it into shape and published. The former journalist, with a Bachelor's degree
in Journalism and Honours in English from Rhodes University, said the idea
of Beautiful Family had its roots from when they visited Tel Aviv and they
saw a prostitute on the roadside and her father remarked to her surprise
that 'Jewish women don't do that'.

Cohen-De Villiers said years later her husband was told by the Sandringham
Police Station commander that a particular problem in their precinct was
domestic violence in Orthodox Jewish families.

Story by: Aphiwe Boyce.

Source: North Eastern Tribune.