An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing: Somatic Practices to Heal Historical Wounds, Unlearn Oppression, and Create a Liberated World to Come - Paperback

by Wendy Elisheva Somerson (Author)

Unapologetically anti-Zionist and firmly rooted in Jewish spiritual values--a liberatory model for Jewish healing

Body-based tools and faith-based practices for processing trauma, reclaiming our agency, and building a world where "never again" means "never again for anyone"

"...an accessible pathway for healing from historical trauma, releasing it from our bodies, and preventing it from being passed on to future generations. This may well be the missing piece for breaking the pattern of violence undergirding Israeli apartheid and occupation."
--Naomi Klein, author of Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World

Dr. Wendy Elisheva Somerson, PhD, shows how Jewish history lives in Jewish bodies--and how antisemitism and oppression disrupt our access to safety, dignity, and belonging. This unmetabolized trauma can lock us into a survival state that brings historical grief into the present moment...and keep us from exploring critical questions that help us tend our legacies and live into a better world.

How does ancestral grief live on in our bodies and keep us from feeling safe--and how is that fear enacted on other peoples? How do we reconcile a history of persecution with the state power of Israel today?

Each chapter invites us back into the body, exploring healing as a spiritual and political reclamation. With skills-based wisdom for trauma, safety, spiritually grounded intentions, and resourcing ourselves for difficult conversations, this book also helps readers understand:

• Trauma and healing through our bodies
• Jewish longing, belonging, legacies of assimilation
• Healing shame--of not being Jewish enough, of being too much, and of being complicit
• Embodied experiences of Jewish resilience, ritual, and grief

Rooted in justice, care, and spiritual depth, this book asks us to live into a Judaism beyond Zionism. It invites us to heal toward liberation--to reclaim Jewish faith and release Jewish identity from the colonial project of Israel in power, skill, and community.

Author Biography

Wendy Elisheva Somerson (wes) is a non-binary Jewish somatic healer, writer, visual artist, and activist who helped found the Seattle chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. They facilitate Ruach, body-based Jewish healing groups held in an anti-Zionist, anti-racist, and feminist framework. As part of a movement of anti-Zionist Jews, they support Jewish healing from historical trauma and promote a liberatory future for Judaism and Jewishness beyond Zionism that includes a free Palestine.