Hi, my name is Kimmie Joy Zeltzer and my Hebrew name is Hadassah Chavivah bat Chaya Faiga Zeltzer. I also go by my pseudonym name “Tzedeck” in my professional work as a multi-disciplinary artist and a former Judaic teacher.
I have had the honor to teach little Jewish children in our local Jewish communities here in Brookline, Chestnut Hill, and Cambridge, as well as mature adults in the Boston and Brookline Jewish communities.
I am also a survivor of clergy abuse.
It has taken me many years to feel confident enough to come out and say this publicly and to acknowledge all of the wonderful people, families, and individuals in our local Jewish communities from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and abroad who have stood by me both privately and publicly throughout the many decades of my recovery and healing so I could be able to integrate back into our beloved Jewish communities and be an active member of the Jewish people again.
I have also been fortunate enough to stay connected throughout the years to many local Jewish women and their families who created a safe space for me to celebrate the Jewish holidays and Shabbat on many occasions with their own families, which gave me a sense of belonging and family when I could not be with my own family.
These local Jewish women in Brookline, Brighton, Newton, and Boston, as well as other Jewish women and men, have been my silent partners for many years while I have been working hard in many areas of my life to be whole again.
I am very grateful to have had the chance to get to know all of these Jewish women and their beautiful families on an intimate one-to-one basis and to be able to celebrate and be invited into their homes with their families to witness and participate with them in celebrating many Jewish holidays and Jewish events throughout the last several decades in Boston and Brookline.
These Jewish women and their families stood by me and supported me by fostering and creating a safe space for me to heal and to stay connected to my Judaism, my faith, and my ability to observe Hashem’s Torah and mitzvot to the best of my ability, one day and one second at a time, while I continued to heal and work toward a life worth living.
I also have been blessed to have had the opportunity to continue to study Torah throughout the decades with many brilliant, intelligent, and compassionate superhero female Torah teachers and rebbetzins and their husbands, both locally in Massachusetts, New York, and Israel.
Despite the injustice that happened to me, I have been able to persevere and work hard and learn from my inner circle of female Torah teachers and Torah partners and their husbands, our Jewish leaders and rabbis.
That was the catalyst that I needed to stay connected to Hashem and His Torah, which enabled me to internalize the Torah teachings that gave me strength, hope, and inspiration not to give up.
For that I am eternally grateful.
My long-term goal has always been to heal and partner with Jewish and non-Jewish leaders and organizations in Massachusetts and abroad to support all of the hard work that other advocates, leaders, and members of the Jewish faith have already done to keep our communities safe for all of Hashem’s children, and to create a fund with sufficient financial resources in our communities and other communities for rehabilitation and recovery for survivors like myself.
I am grateful to Hashem for giving me the strength to endure this long journey back to myself and to be able to reclaim my identity as a Jewish woman and member of the Jewish community.
My prayer and good wishes for all of us as we start preparing for Pesach is that we remember that the same God that our ancestors prayed to so many years ago in Egypt for freedom out of bondage is still the same God we can also pray to and reach out to for redemption from whatever is keeping us in bondage as modern Jews in 2026/5786.
We are not alone, and that same God who heard our Jewish ancestors cry for salvation so many years ago in Mitzrayim (Egypt) is still that same everlasting God we have access to today in the year 2026/5786.
Hashem has never left us nor will He leave us, and there is still great hope for salvation, redemption, happiness, and healing for all of Klal Israel and the world.
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