Trump’s ACA Order Creates Health-Care Chaos

So now we face yet another assault on the health and safety of our nation due to the barrage of efforts by the current administration to dismantle certain provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This creates great risk and chaos within a system that is aimed at providing both proactive and reactive care to individuals in our country.

As a Jewish community, we should be outraged at the callous attempt to shirk society’s obligation to care for one another, both in terms of last week’s decision to cut subsidy payments to insurers (“cost-sharing reduction payments”) and the ruling to withhold the ACA’s promise of no-cost contraceptive coverage. As conversations and negotiations change by the hour, we are both encouraged to learn of bipartisan cooperation to save the cost-sharing reduction payments while at the same time disappointed with the administration’s insensitive statements and recommendations to eliminate someone’s health care.

This supersedes all other commandments, as it is inferred from one of the most well-known rabbinic teachings, the concept of pikuach nefesh, saving a soul, found in Mishnah Yoma. The text suggests that saving the life of yourself or another is so great that one is permitted to break the laws of Shabbat for the safety of human life. We must interpret this to modern day and protect the lives of millions who will be affected by attempts to cripple the Affordable Care Act. To dismantle a life-saving system is antithetical to the concept of pikuach nefesh.

Furthermore, the book of Leviticus (19:16) teaches that one should not stand idly by the blood of their neighbor. Many among us acknowledge the ACA is not a perfect system and does not go far enough to provide adequate health care to our entire society. Yet, to make provisions that seek to strip health care from any individual is to create a situation in which we as a society will be standing by the blood of our neighbor.

Although negotiations are ongoing, last week’s initial decision by the Trump administration to sign an executive order sends a signal to the insurance companies that their participation in the ACA is not cost-effective for their company. As insurance companies cease their participation in the ACA, it places many people in our society at great risk of losing their health care, putting their lives and the lives of their loved ones at risk.   

The Jewish community must look at the current health care debate and ask ourselves: Is the Trump administration seeking to save lives, or, by suggesting that we eliminate the cost-sharing reduction payments, are its actions creating a risky environment that will harm lives?

The answer is clear. We as Jews have a responsibility to care for one another. If the future health care of an individual is unknown, then we are ignoring our commandment of pikuach nefesh, to save lives.

It is the responsibility of us all to ensure the health and safety of one another.

The administration is taking a further step by issuing rules that would allow employers and insurers to withhold the ACA’s promise of no-cost contraceptive coverage. This is a direct attack on women, who should be the only decision makers for their bodies. Many have celebrated this recent ruling as a win for religious freedom but many organizations have a contrary view.

Any government-backed initiative that allows for discrimination based on religious belief is an affront to our religious freedoms. A provision in Trump’s order puts women’s reproductive health decisions in the hands of their employers and insurers. Our country has a long legacy of religious freedom, and recent attempts to incorporate discrimination into the legislative process based on religious freedom are antithetical to the core beliefs of our religion and the core beliefs of this nation.

We have a strong and healthy tradition of debate and dissent within the Jewish framework, but it seems clear that the dismantling of the ACA creates a dangerous situation in which the health care of many in our society will be in the balance. We must go beyond offering a misheberach for those in need of healing. The ACA and other initiatives that seek to provide sustainable and reliable health care to all link our prayers to our actions as we seek to truly heal those in need. 

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Rabbi Joel Simonds is the founding executive director of the Jewish Center for Justice.

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Trump’s Changes to ACA Are Worth Celebrating

On Oct. 12, President Donald Trump signed an executive order rolling back a handful of Obamacare’s regulations.

Patients and employers should celebrate the move. The administration is taking action where Congress could not, increasing the number of insurance choices available to Americans — and reducing their cost.

The order directs the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury to come up with regulations that would allow for three key changes.

First, Trump’s order aims to expand access to association health plans, or AHPs. These plans allow small, like-minded employers to join forces to purchase a large-group insurance policy together.

The Obama administration cracked down on AHPs by decreeing that small employers banding together under the banner of an association would not be eligible to buy a large-group policy to cover them all.

That was crucial, because Obamacare imposed many costly regulations and mandates on individual and small-group insurance but not on policies issued in the large-group market.

The administration is … increasing the number of insurance choices available to Americans.

Among those regulations are the essential health benefits mandates, which require all policies to cover 10 benefits, regardless of whether employers or beneficiaries want them.

These mandates inflate the cost of insurance. Many small businesses and employees would gladly take lower premiums and deductibles in exchange for policies that don’t cover expensive services.

But they don’t have that option; their only choice is expensive, comprehensive insurance. So it’s no wonder that only one-third of businesses with fewer than 50 employees offer health insurance — or that just one-third of 1 percent of employees at such firms have coverage through Obamacare’s Small Business Health Options, or SHOP, exchange.

Crucially, those with pre-existing conditions will be protected if their employer opts for an AHP. The executive order emphasizes that employers cannot exclude employees from joining the plan, nor can they charge different premiums to different individuals covered by the plan.

Trump’s executive order also relaxes restrictions on low-cost, short-term health insurance plans. Obamacare set the maximum term for such plans at three months; the executive order will probably extend that term to just under a year and allow the plans to be renewed.

Obamacare slapped strictures on short-term plans to try to force people into the insurance exchanges. But exchange plans have proven too expensive for many individuals, thanks to the many mandates governing them. 

The third component of Trump’s executive order would boost the power of health reimbursement arrangements, or HRAs. These accounts enable employers to allocate tax-free dollars to employees to help them with qualified healthcare expenses.

HRAs are particularly popular with small businesses. Under Obamacare, those with fewer than 50 employees are not obligated to offer health insurance to their workers. Many do so anyway. Others may not be able to afford to provide coverage, especially if their only options are on Obamacare’s expensive marketplaces. HRAs can allow them to give their employees at least some help paying for care.

Under the executive order, the administration is likely to broaden the definition of qualified health care expenses to allow for HRA funds to cover insurance premiums. That could help scores of people who previously could not afford coverage pay for it.

Republicans have promised for the better part of eight years to expand access to low-cost coverage by repealing and replacing Obamacare. President Trump’s executive order finally makes good on that promise, albeit to a small degree.

And, on Oct. 13, President Trump announced that he would immediately stop paying the illegal CSR (Cost-Sharing Reduction) subsidies to insurers.  These payments of $7 billion a year were never appropriated by Congress.  A specific instruction to pay that money is required by the U.S. Constitution before federal money can be paid. 

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Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO and the Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute.

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We Are Dying of Overexposure to Death

Let me tell you what has scarred me for life. 

It wasn’t just the machete, or being beaten to a pulp, or the shock that I might soon be dead as my friend and I were attacked by Palestinian terrorists in 2010. It wasn’t even the humiliation that came from begging for my life from those who thought themselves strong. 

It was witnessing the death of another human being. 

It occurred to me that, should I ever again get into the dreadful situation of witnessing a person being hacked to death, somehow it would be easier — less shocking, less traumatic.

Not just watching, but listening, too. Kristine Luken’s prayers, her pleas with her executioners and her expiring breaths blended to form the last sounds of this innocent woman as she went to meet her Maker.

Invading my friend’s final moments with God was like bursting into the Holy of Holies. Violating her sanctity by unwillingly eavesdropping on her as she was about to die is what has scarred me for life.  

Months later, when I faced the murderers in an Israeli court, I realized just how deep the scars were. As I stared at those whom I had encountered in the Jerusalem forest, I watched them yawn and roll their eyes. Death had anesthetized their souls. They were soulless zombies, bored by death. 

Yet it wasn’t their indifference that horrified me the most. It was me. 

It occurred to me that, should I ever again get into the dreadful situation of witnessing a person being hacked to death, somehow it would be easier — less shocking, less traumatic. In a way, I realized I had the potential to become like them: dead inside.

There is a passage in the Torah (Deuteronomy 21:22-23) in which the children of Israel are commanded to take down before sunset the body of an executed person hanged from a tree. Rashi notes that for the body to be left up there too long would be a degradation of the Divine. It also was a violation of those made in the image of God.

Our forefathers knew that looking at death for too long had a price. We, too, are in danger of paying that price. Metaphorically speaking, we are looking too long at bodies hanging on a tree. 

At our own peril, we are becoming accustomed to death because watching murder is accessible today like never before. However far away we are from the carnage, news and social media see to it that we can satiate our macabre yet natural fascination with death. We observe slaughter in real time, eavesdrop on the pleas of the dying and listen to the desperation of loved-ones trying to help.

With deluded spiritual impunity, we put up our feet and watch footage of people as they breathe their last breaths. One moment we click on a red-faced emoticon after reading about the day’s latest atrocity, and seconds later scroll down to click on a heart, showing our friends how much we love hamsters eating broccoli. Ignorant of the fatal blow the death of others has on our souls, each time we become less moved and less shocked.

We are dying of overexposure to death.

Death has a task. It serves to remind us that life is not forever. The role of death is not to arouse in us fascination or voyeurism as it comes to claim others. The role of death is to instill in us appreciation for life so we can take on the yoke of responsibility that comes with the business of living.

Death reminds us that we are here for a limited and unknown amount of time during which we must act for the good of our families, our communities and the world. It is the certainty of our own death that should spur us to become kinder people.

If and when we do bear witness to the murder of others as they go to meet their Maker — online, on television or by other means — let us do it with appropriate trepidation and caution, because if we look for too long, we stand to invade the Holy of Holies, desecrate others and the Divine. 

In doing so, we deal an irreparable deathblow to ourselves. 

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Kay Wilson is a British-born Israeli tour guide, cartoonist, musician and educator for StandWithUs.

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Sexual Harassment: Is There a Jewish Answer?

When Harvey Weinstein’s long and horrible history was made public, women spanning several continents were disgusted and outraged — but not surprised. We’ve known for eons that this pattern of male brutality repeats itself in any professional setting, no matter the political or social context. But will it ever change?

It’s easy to despair. Tablet’s notorious article — calling Weinstein “a deeply Jewish kind of pervert” — is laughable: Men do it everywhere, to everyone. (The author of the Tablet piece has since apologized.)

In Israel, the scandals have spanned so many social and institutional arenas, that I have questioned whether there might be an Israeli angle. Israel comes to sexual harassment through its specific blend of military-machoism, high social aggression, and history of cover-ups among the tight male military cadres, Indeed, 1 in 6 female soldiers say they have been sexually harassed during their military service, according to a survey by the Israel Defense Forces.

But for those on the receiving end, it’s all the same sleaze. The reaction of women everywhere is similar: With each new revelation, a fresh geyser of awful stories erupts, experiences that many couldn’t summon the strength to reveal at the time. We are in a phase of releasing pressure that has festered inside us for decades.

But there must be a different phase ahead. It will be a stage of evolution in which workplace norms foster positive and healthy relationships, normal human tension notwithstanding.

No one should buy the whining about a dystopian, sterilized work environment. In fact, the foundations of the future already exist.

Dozens of countries have a legal basis for preventing and apprehending sexual harassment at work. Laws can be preventive and punitive. Just as important, they provide symbolic social legitimization of women’s experiences.

In Israel, robust laws against sexual harassment in 1998 led to a stream of accusations and due process that have toppled men from a range of powerful positions, including a president. With all the emotional pain the women endure in the telling, that’s progress.

But sexual-power dynamics are so complex, the risks, shame, rage and trauma so fearsome, that it will take more than laws to make a real change. Many women never even complain, and manipulative men just keep going, feigning shock when exposed. Those men need to change the deep foundations of their interaction with women.

Impossible, antithetical to human nature, utopian? Nonsense.

Great models of constructive, vibrant and supportive male-female relations at work already exist. Let’s talk about those, too.

My first professional mentor hired me when I was too young to believe in my own skills. In addition to working together in an intense environment where I had a huge learning curve, we also went for dinner and drank wine — as adults who appreciated and respected each other. The experience helped me build a professional confidence that, in those early years, I never imagined I could muster.

Over the years, in addition to the jerks I’ll never forgive, there have been excellent relations with creative, collaborative men that I’ll never forget. We can work, joke and drink coffee — or even beer — together without me feeling threatened, without them fearing accusations. 

Why? I believe genuinely supportive, honest men (and women) think differently from manipulative predators. Upright men view women — and hopefully everyone — as individuals, professionals, and most of all as people to be heard. They are in a dialogue, not a monologue.

People in dialogue listen to one another when building a platonic professional relationship, no matter how powerful one of them is. If an attraction happens — and it’s natural — they are much less likely to have “misunderstandings” of the kind that drove Israeli journalist Ari Shavit to maul a reporter from this paper during a professional meeting — which she exposed and which led to his downfall. They look at a woman and believe she desires them, because they see only their own lie. She doesn’t exist.

While the problem certainly isn’t a Jewish one, there is a Jewish voice that can help. Martin Buber taught the value of seeing the other clear through to the soul, as the basis for the art of dialogue. That’s a big, spiritual change from rapacious egotism. We can do it. 

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Dahlia Scheindlin is a writer at +972 magazine and a policy fellow at Mitvim — The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies. She lives in Israel.

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Carrying a Cynical Heart Won’t Stop Gun Violence

This year, I was especially looking forward to Yom Kippur. September had been exceptionally busy, and the downtime was a welcome change of pace. Between the fast and the time spent in temple, Yom Kippur worked as intended — I had some rare time for authentic self-reflection. 

As the director of a small but dynamic gun violence prevention organization in Washington, D.C., I spend my days developing lifesaving policies and fighting the gun lobby. I am constantly dealing with tragedy and its aftermath — constantly meeting survivors of gun violence, working with those who have been affected, consoling families changed forever. Sometimes, that constant exposure to tragedy makes me create a wall that separates my work from my human emotions. 

I don’t intentionally create that wall. The separation happens subtly over time. It enables me to keep working in times of high anxiety, but it also can breed acceptance of the status quo and, even worse, cynicism. Cynicism is the brain telling the heart not to get too hopeful because nothing is going to change. Cynicism can be self-protective, but it thwarts effective advocacy. 

This Yom Kippur, I vowed that in the new year I would bring down the wall. I vowed that I would not allow the serious nature of my work to blunt my emotions or muddy my dream: a world free from gun violence. I would not give in to cynicism.    

Little did I know that my plans for the new year would be tested immediately.

We awoke the morning of Oct. 2 — shortly after Yom Kippur — to horrific news out of Las Vegas. As the day unfolded and the extent of the carnage became clear, emotions came in waves: grief, anger and, yes, cynicism. How could this happen again and at such a scale? Will we ever learn from our mistakes? Is there really hope for change? 

As I felt the wall start to go up, I stumbled across a blog post written a couple of days before Yom Kippur by Rabbi Naomi Levy, the spiritual leader of Nashuva in Los Angeles. She wrote about the inability to connect with her emotions after her father was shot and killed when she was a young girl. She said that the most important theme of Yom Kippur comes down to this line in Ezekiel: “I will remove your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh.” 

She goes on to write, “Cutting through the heart of stone and arriving at the heart of flesh isn’t a one-time job. The stone heart isn’t gone forever. At every loss, at every disappointment, at every new challenge, it’s there ready to return, ready to take its familiar place inside you. And it takes so much courage to stay alive and soft and vulnerable.”   

As we face the challenges presented by Las Vegas and the terrible toll of gun violence in America, it is imperative that we cut through our hearts of stone and tear down our protective walls. It is imperative that we stay open, vulnerable and confident in our ability to make a difference. We must allow ourselves to feel the urgent pain of gun violence, the human cost, the true toll. And we must use those powerful emotions to summon courage, optimism and commitment. 

Here is what gives me optimism in this dark hour:

First, research shows that comprehensive approaches to gun violence prevention work. Permit-to-purchase laws, prohibitions on domestic abusers possessing guns, and policies that remove guns from those in crisis — known as the Extreme Risk Protective Order (ERPO) — among others, have proven effective. We know what to do to save lives. 

Second, a majority of Americans support responsible approaches to gun violence prevention. Polls show strong bipartisan support for policies such as universal background checks and ERPO — even among gun owners. 

Finally, change already is happening. Individual states are leading the way in enacting innovative and effective gun violence prevention policies. After the terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in 2012, some states enacted new universal background-check provisions. Many states have enacted new provisions to further restrict the ability of domestic abusers to acquire guns. 

This list does not mean change is easy or inevitable. It means it is possible. And reminding ourselves that change is possible is the wall that can keep cynicism away. 

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Joshua Horwitz is the executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

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As a woman

As a woman, I don’t vote for women just because they’re women.
As a feminist, I don’t vote for women just because they’re women.

As a woman, I don’t march just because something is called a “women’s march.”
As a feminist, I don’t march just because something is called a “women’s march.”

As a woman, I am offended when other women claim to speak for me. As a feminist, I am offended when leftist feminists try to tell me what to think.

As a woman, I chose to stay home and care for my son when he was young.
As a feminist, I knew that this was my choice, that feminism means freedom for women to make these choices.

As a woman, I would never do anything to advance my career that undermines my self-respect.
As a feminist, I know that feminism is not a free ride: along with rights comes personal responsibility, including the responsibility to say no in difficult situations.

As a woman, I don’t keep silent about immoral behavior, no matter what the consequences.
As a feminist, I know that silence equals complicity.

As a woman, I love being a woman. I am offended by theorists who claim that we are all gender-fluid, that my femininity is a social construct.
As a feminist, I believe in biology, not trendy theories.

As a woman, I am against all restrictions on women that are not personal choices.
As a feminist, I find it hypocritical that leftist feminists never speak out against the restrictions on Muslim women that often are very much not personal choices.

As a woman, I don’t feel oppressed living in the United States.
As a feminist, I know that oppression and patriarchy exist in other countries, countries often ignored by leftist feminists because those nations don’t fit their political narrative.

As a woman and a writer, I have been bullied by both the left and the right, by women as well as men.
As a feminist, I know that bullying is a sign of weakness and insecurity. I have taught my son that no level of bullying is acceptable, and that the only way to respond to bullies is to walk away.

As a woman, I am inspired by strong, sexy women like Gal Gadot.
As a feminist, I know that being comfortable with my sexuality fuels my strength as a woman.

As a woman, I know that Israel is one of the most feminist countries on earth: Israeli women rise to incomparable positions of power in every field.
As a feminist, I know that Zionism and feminism have historically been prominent pillars of liberalism: efforts to demonize Zionism stem from bigotry, not liberalism or feminism.

As a Jewish woman, I love the ritual of lighting candles every Shabbat, of bringing the light into my heart and releasing it into the world through singing the blessing.
As a Jewish feminist, I may not support some of the restrictions placed on women in Judaism, but I respect a woman’s right to choose, as long as it is a choice.

As a woman, I think it’s well past time to take back the word feminist from people on both the right and the left who don’t understand what it means.
As a feminist, I know that if you don’t think women should be controlled — by either the left or the right, by men or other women — then you are indeed a feminist.

As a woman, as a feminist, as an individual, I think for myself, thank you.

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Breaking the Silence

‘You Need to Decide’

I used to consider it a badge of honor that Harvey Weinstein once threatened me. By some twisted Hollywood calculus, it sort of meant you had made it.

It was during the awards season of 2012, after I had written a profile of Michel Hazanavicius, the director and screenwriter of the silent film “The Artist,” which Weinstein was peddling for the Academy Awards (it later won for best picture). Not long after the story appeared, I was surprised to receive a note from Weinstein.

“You are a poet of prose,” it read.

It struck me as an absurdly hyperbolic compliment for a 1,200-word newspaper story. But I was delighted that one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood seemed to like my work.

But then came another email, this one from his publicist: “Saw the piece! It’s great,” she wrote, adding, “One smallish thing … can you call me?”

It turned out Weinstein was bothered by one of the quotes I used from Hazanavicius, and he wanted me to take it out of the story. I explained to the publicist — repeatedly — that I couldn’t change the piece.

Then my phone rang. It was Weinstein.

“Danielle,” he said firmly, “this is the first time we’ve worked together. You need to decide if you want Harvey Weinstein to be friend — or foe.”

For 20 minutes he enumerated the reasons why this one quote would be ruinous to the film, the filmmaker and its chances at the Oscars. I reiterated what I had told his publicist — that I wouldn’t change the quote or take it out. If Hazanavicius wanted to clarify the comment, I said, I could add an editor’s note.

Weinstein became angry.

“Danielle,” he said firmly, “this is the first time we’ve worked together. You need to decide if you want Harvey Weinstein to be friend — or foe.”

I held my ground, citing the demands of journalistic ethics. But that incensed him even more. “You’re a stubborn Jewish girl,” he finally said, “just like all the other Jewish girls I’ve dated.”

Then he hung up.

That mild episode came to mind earlier this month when allegations were made public that Hollywood’s notorious, Oscar-decorated mogul reportedly had spent three decades abusing his power to sexually harass and assault women — most of them colleagues and employees. It surprised no one in Hollywood that Weinstein was a bully — he’s been using his power to intimidate and coerce industry colleagues — from reporters to studio executives — since he first started in the business. Not even Michael Eisner, the former CEO of the Walt Disney Co., was spared Weinstein’s legendary wrath. The reported lengths to which Weinstein would go to get what he wanted were illimitable. No one was immune.

But the revelations of alleged extreme sexual misconduct over decades revealed the extent to which Weinstein’s expectation of complicity and compliance had subsumed an entire industry. Either you were one of his many alleged victims, sexual or otherwise, or you were indifferent to the machinations of a tyrant. It’s only Hollywood, many thought. Anything goes.

Not anymore. The public response to the stunning allegations against Weinstein was swift and nearly unequivocal.

Through the media, long pent-up rage and outrage exploded into cultural consciousness, and a suffocating silence around the oppression of women in the film industry turned into a symphony of comeuppance.

Within days of the initial report published by The New York Times, The Weinstein Co. suspended him indefinitely, and half of the company’s all-male board resigned. When The New Yorker published a second, more detailed and damning report, Weinstein was fired.

In the days that followed, the floodgates burst open, as more and more women — including famous and powerful celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie — stepped forward with their stories of abuse. An industry whose constitution depended on an “open secret” policy of ignoring and condoning the exploitation of women had finally reached a crescendo: Would it regress into defensiveness or start pulling out its rotted root system?

The reason Harvey Weinstein allegedly was able to get away with his abhorrent behavior for so long is because the perception of his power cowed others into submission and silence. His mythic status in an industry that prides itself on pandering to human fantasy further reinforced the powerlessness of his reported victims. Everyone wanted what Weinstein was selling: dreams, access, wealth, fame. His power was individual, but it also was industrial, supported by the belief that Hollywood’s prevailing patriarchal system would protect the engines of its own existence. And so for too long, his alleged victims and collaborators internalized a sense of helplessness in the face of crassness and corruption. They chose to preserve a poisonous status quo, whether out of ambition, resigned complacency or fear.

Now we can see that Weinstein’s accusers weren’t the only ones “crushed” under the weight of transgression: An entire industry acquiesced to an unspoken rule that what matters is human achievement, not human dignity. Not everyone committed a crime, but everyone sinned. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “Indifference to evil is worse than evil itself; in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

From Complicity to #MeToo

“I know that everybody — I mean everybody — in Hollywood knows that it’s happening. He’s not even really hiding. I mean, the way he does it, so many people are involved and see what’s happening. But everyone’s too scared to say anything.” — actress Emma de Caunes, accuser

“Everything was designed to make me feel comfortable before it happened. And then the shame in what happened was also designed to keep me quiet.” — Lucia Evans, accuser

“I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have stopped it.”  — executive at The Weinstein Co.

When it comes to encapsulating the most appalling part of the Weinstein debacle, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens put it best: “Of all of the dismaying and disgusting details of the Harvey Weinstein saga,” he wrote, “none is more depressing than this: It has so few heroes.” And maybe none.

In an age of social media self-aggrandizement, it is astonishing how many consciences shrank from the courage to intervene. For three decades, Weinstein’s reported bad behavior ensnared everyone — from his accusers, to his boardroom, to the famous actors, directors and film executives with whom he worked, to reporters who were eager to do his will in exchange for access to his world.

It is a fitting irony that in an industry where everyone tries so hard to look good, so few had the guts to do good.

Weinstein’s reported behavior has been described as “an open secret”: the subject of an Oscar joke, red-carpet interviews, even late night TV. Everyone knew, we’re told. It was “a conspiracy of silence,” as actress Glenn Close put it. So it seems even more unseemly that an industry associated with championing causes and giving charity would abet systemic corruption and then play dumb.

Yet here’s George Clooney on the subject: “I’ve known Harvey for 20 years. He gave me my first big break as an actor. … He gave me my first big break as a director. … We’ve had dinners, we’ve been on location together, we’ve had arguments. But I can tell you that I’ve never seen any of this behavior — ever.”

Perhaps in a horror story without heroes, the least you can do is act clueless. But with no one to save the day, the burden of truth telling falls to the damsels in distress. Although it is too much to ask to flout fear, trauma, helplessness — someone has to go first.

It took 30 years for enough brave women to break their silence about Weinstein and share their stories with The New York Times and The New Yorker. Our country has a history of brave, lone voices erupting from time to time — from Anita Hill to the women who accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct while he was on his way to the White House. Now the long-sleeping giant is awake. And for the first time, it isn’t one or two or a dozen women accusing one individual, but a rising chorus of women’s voices determined to end the “conspiracy of silence” around sexual assault.

What the “MeToo” hashtag phenomenon reveals is just how commonplace the experience of assault and harassment is for women in the United States. By press time, the #MeToo campaign spilled over from Twitter to Facebook, where it was tagged 12 million times. Countless people shared their stories of alleged rape, assault and harassment, whether it occurred at work, school or home, during childhood or adulthood, among the famous or not-so-famous. Celebrities America Ferrera, Debra Messing, Lady Gaga and Anna Paquin used the hashtag, as did some men in a show of solidarity.

The outpouring was inter-generational. Even women who came of age in earlier eras finally felt this was the moment to speak up. The Forward’s editor-in-chief, Jane Eisner, told a story of alleged sexual harassment that took place early in her career and the toll silence took on her conscience.

“What if that editor preyed on someone else after me? What if my silence translated into complicity, and what if that enabled harm to continue? What if I’m somehow guilty, too?” Eisner wrote. “That’s the insidious aspect of sexual harassment. The victim becomes isolated in a prison of her own making and unwittingly allows the exploitation to continue.”

Now that so many of these stories are meeting the hot glare of the spotlight, will anything really change?

Philosopher Edmund Burke famously said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” But it is a failure of imagination to imbue only men with moral will. To right the wrongs in our society and in our world, women must also be elevated and empowered to live in accordance with their conscience.

From Trauma to Teshuvah

I felt trapped. … I was very afraid of him. … I opened the door terrified. …

The most excruciating and uncomfortable hour of my life. … I was so horrified. … He overpowered me. … I was disgusted with myself. … I had eating problems for years. … I have nightmares about him. … Just talking to you about it, my whole body is shaking. … I’ve been damaged.  — statements from Weinstein’s accusers, cited in The New Yorker

“I think now is the right time, in this current climate, for the truth.” — former executive, The Weinstein Co.

The reign of Harvey the Great is over. And to the others just like him: Beware. Hell hath no fury like millions of women scorned.

As Hollywood stories go, the Weinstein saga is by every measure a tragedy.

Today, tomorrow, the next day will bring another news cycle, perhaps a new alleged predator unmasked, but this story will never be over for the women who lived it; their suffering is irreparable. The feelings of pain, violation and helplessness inflicted upon them is something they must live with. It is no small triumph that an alleged abuser of power has been brought low, but Weinstein is one alleged perpetrator in a world of many. Just because he was finally outed doesn’t mean the trauma ends for his reported victims, or change the fact that the world these women inhabited was unsafe and unfair.

What the public revelation of Weinstein’s reported pestiferous behavior brought into harsh relief is that he is not alone.

“Mr. Weinstein may be the most powerful man in Hollywood to be revealed as a predator, but he’s certainly not the only one who has been allowed to run wild,” writer and actress Lena Dunham wrote in The New York Times. “His behavior, silently co-signed for decades by employees and collaborators, is a microcosm of what has been happening in Hollywood since always and of what workplace harassment looks like for women everywhere.”

Actress and director Sarah Polley wrote that she gave up acting nearly 10 years ago because she grew tired of feeling “humiliated, violated, [and] dismissed” on set.

“It wasn’t worth it to me,” she wrote in The Times, “to open my heart and make myself so vulnerable in an industry that makes its disdain for women evident everywhere I turn.”

Hollywood, as an industry, is culpable. But so are we. And it’s on us to ensure that Weinstein and Hollywood do not become the sole scapegoats for a more pervasive problem, one that cuts across industries, communities and political aisles. If our whole society is sick, then our whole society must atone and reform.

Calls for institutional change are beginning. Some are urging Hollywood’s talent agencies to institute policies forbidding professional meetings in hotel rooms; others are calling on the guilds to defend and protect industry workers who come forward with accusations of harassment.

Most notably, however, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors voted to expel Weinstein from the Academy, citing a new no-tolerance policy.

“[T]he era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over,” read the Academy’s statement.

It is now up to those who averted their eyes from this problem to end the dark legacy of “the casting couch” in all of its ugly iterations. There should be no impunity for those who flout the rules of basic human decency. The epidemic of bullying and intimidating women; of using sexual violence to diminish or suppress them; of extracting sexual favors in exchange for career advancement needs to end not only in Hollywood, but in all halls of power.

It is time for a cultural heshbon hanefesh (accounting of the soul) to account for the state of our soullessness.

“We need to look at ourselves,” actress-director Polley wrote. “What have we been willing to accept, out of fear, helplessness, a sense that things can’t be changed? What else are we turning a blind eye to, in all aspects of our lives? What else have we accepted that, somewhere within us, we know is deeply unacceptable? And what, now, will we do about it?”

The reign of Harvey the Great is over. And to the others just like him: Beware. Hell hath no fury like millions of women scorned.

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