CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Pioneering Intimacy Education
By Judy Lash Balint
A
s if working as Academic Principal for the innovative and popular EMUNAH V’Omanut program in Jerusalem, and parenting six children (including several teenagers) weren’t enough, Dr. Yocheved Debow is also one of the leading experts on Jewish life values and intimacy education, and the author of a forthcoming guide for Orthodox parents on, “Talking About Intimacy and Sexuality: A Guide for Orthodox Jewish Parents.” (KTAV, 2012). The book follows Dr. Debow’s groundbreaking work, coauthored with Dr. Anna Woloski Wruble, a renowned sexual health practitioner affiliated with Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University, which produced the Life Values and Intimacy Education Curriculum that offers day school teachers practical guidance and Jewish source material to discuss and teach sensitive topics that include how to relate to the opposite sex; how parents should talk to their children about physical changes and sexual relationships; dealing with how sexual values are transmitted in the media; helping couples develop a respectful sexual relationship; the Jewish view of marital and extra-marital relations, and recognizing and coping with sexual abuse. While “sex ed.” classes have existed in secular schools in both the US and Israel for decades, until Dr. Debow’s curriculum came on the scene, programs geared toward incorporating halachic values on intimacy and relationship issues for students attending modern orthodox day schools had been haphazard at best.
26 | Spring/Summer 2012/5772 | EMUNAH Magazine | emunah.org