Syag:
Please allow me to clarify my use of those particular terms, such as ‘few’ or ‘isolated’.I wasn’t intending to make any point other than the one stated. I admit that to those who know more than I do about this issue, or victims, the term ‘few’ does sound as if it demeans or diminishes the extent of the crimes. And for that I apologise. In the context of the key point I was trying to bring across, I was simply trying to say, albeit clumsily, that, b’h, in terms of criminal abuse (as opposed to low-key emotional abuse), the vast majority of people are neither victims nor perpetrators, and we should not allow the facts of any particular case to be warped to ascribe blame to those who do not deserve it, an instance of which I have pointed out above. Akcnowledging this in no way diminishes either the crime of the abuser or the responsibility of those who aided the abuser actively or passively. And in most cases abusers are ‘isolated’, in that the patterns of activity found in goyshe cases of abuse, which often include ‘rings’ or ‘gangs’ of many abusers working together, is b’h rare in our communities, where abusers work alone, albeit sometimes with others wrongly covering up for them. I hope I have sufficiently explained how I in no way was attempting to play down the severity of the issue, simply pointing out an issue that often gets lost in the heat of the media storm, that of hostile elements painting an unfair or warped picture.