Ultra-Orthodox address mental illness in Israel
Bayit Cham battles against the attitude still prevalent among many ultra-Orthodox families that mental illness is something that needs hiding.
Ultra-Orthodox charity groups often launch donation campaigns ahead of the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur. The campaign recently launched by Bayit Cham (Warm Home), a group assisting ultra-Orthodox families of children with mental illness, has attracted special attention.
“We touch on the most painful stories, deal with human and family tragedies we are supposed to respond to, and still, all of this activity is done under a cloak of secrecy,” Bayit Cham Director Arie Munk told Al-Monitor.
Founded in 1997, the organization contended at the beginning with an attitude of disregard and total mistrust. “In those years, the view was that there are no cases of mental illness [among the ultra-Orthodox]. A family that dealt with mental illness invested all its energies to sweeping it under the rug and burying it. The goal was that no one would know or hear of it.”
Individuals who were left untreated often developed more severe mental health struggles, but the idea of treatment wasn’t in the ultra-Orthodox lexicon because of the concern that it would hurt potential matchmaking.
