The Enemy Within
by Michelle Rhnea Yisrael

When a woman is physically beaten, everyone knows. But how do you know when she experiences emotional bruises and battery? Which one of your friends right now suffers from the emotional lashing of a tongue? Although the wounds may not appear visible to the naked eye; they still have real physical affects.

This book tells the story of a survivor. One who beat the odds and broke free, before her abuser broke her. Simchah is a strong woman. Although seasoned by time and worn down by life, she is a warrior who endured many wounds on the battlefield of life. This story picks up where most stories end. Simchah entrusts her young granddaughter, Zaharah, with her hard-learned life-truths, in hopes Zaharah may learn from her mistakes. Through Simchah’s journals, Zaharah takes a painful walk down memory lane and witnesses the emotional abuse her grandmother endured. Simchah’s ethnographic chronicles of her abusive marriage reveal, although she saw the signs of abuse early in her relationship, she did not recognize them until they grew and ultimately blew up in her face. After reading her grandmother’s journals, Zaharah sees her grandmother, and the world around her, from a refreshed and informed perspective and in a whole new light of lived truths.