It’s quite an experience to be forced last week to publicly disclose my own account of being assaulted, to then learn that day about several others who were also assaulted by him, followed immediately by the news cycle we’re now in about survivors, doubters, and #WhyDidntIReport
I was assaulted by him in November of 2013. A week or so later he texted me saying: “Please don’t tell anyone about this.” He literally said those words to me. #WhyDidntIReport? Let me count the ways.
The only person I told immediately afterward was a close friend. I ran out of the apartment building, messaged my friend and said: “Are you awake? Please tell me you’re awake.” He was the only person who knew where I was. But what evidence did I have? What could I do but go home?
I went home. I missed class the next week; I was a zombie at work. I wanted to sleep forever and try to pretend nothing happened. Because, after all, this happens all the time. 1 in 4, or 1 in 5. We’ve all been violated, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Right?
Two years later, the headlines say that the man who assaulted me has moved beyond profiting off of int’l humanitarian work and is now going to work for the Prime Minister of Israel. We have many mutual friends here and abroad, and nearly all of them are women. What would you do?
So it was then, in early 2016, that I finally told friends what had happened. But then one of those friends told a reporter, who worked for Galatz, in Israel. And hours later, they published an article saying that a young woman had accused him — and of course he denied it.
Many people pressured me to go on the record about the assault. Some even suggested that I *had to* go on the record in order to be believed.
Ultimately, it wasn’t my decision to tell my story on the record. But I’m glad that it gave others the courage to do so, too.
Ultimately, it wasn’t my decision to tell my story on the record. But I’m glad that it gave others the courage to do so, too.
