An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing

Praise

“Israel-Palestine has been described by many as the ‘open wound’ of the modern world: never healed, never even bandaged. Somerson brings a healer’s perspective to this ongoing injury, focusing on its deep, underlying sources. They explain clearly how the Israeli government manipulates Jewish collective trauma to forward its far-right agenda. Most crucially, they lay out an accessible pathway for healing from historical trauma, releasing it from our bodies and preventing it from being passed onto future generations.”
—NAOMI KLEIN, author of Doppelganger

“Zionism is not solely supported by Jews, nor does it exist to make Jews safer, but it does manipulate Jews through misuse of Jewish trauma, and this book can help us understand and resist that, so we might build a safety for Jews and all people based on an anti-colonial, anti-Zionist solidarity politics.”
—DEAN SPADE, author of Mutual Aid

“Much that Somerson shares occurs across communities—weaponizing historical trauma, resistance to body-based work . . ., and the broader political meaning of the collective fact of healing—but their words deepen our understanding by being held within the intimacy of Jewish experience
and histories. A wonderfully pragmatic as well as visionary book, this is an example of the integrity of collective healing held in a good and truthful way.”
—SUSAN RAFFO, author of Liberated to the Bone

“This is the book Jews who are committed to justice need at this moment. Bringing together trauma and healing studies, history and ritual, and stories from decades of practice as a somatic therapist and organizer, Somerson writes complex concepts in ways that are nuanced, yet accessible. This is a landmark book in the field of Jewish trauma and healing studies.”
—RABBI JESSICA ROSENBERG, coauthor of For Times Such as These

“ In this heartbreakingly timely book, Somerson bravely offers clarity and insight into the unfathomable. Most importantly, this book offers guidance on how we might heal without pretending the work of healing will be easy. But it might be possible, and this book is an invaluable guide to that possibility.”
—ABIGAIL ROSE CLARKE, author of Returning Home to Our Bodies

“ Right on time, this book is a true gift for our resistance movements and our healing work, which as this book so beautifully reminds us, are one and the same. I’m so grateful for all the wisdom Wendy Elisheva Somerson shares about embodied rituals for trouble-making toward holy interdependence, a Judaism beyond Zionism, and a free and thriving Palestine.”
—DORI MIDNIGHT, community-care practitioner, ritual leader, and writer