People of the body and the book:
From moral injury to sacred solidarity
Facilitators: Ayelet Marinovich, Noah Goldberg and Stacey Prince
Guest Speakers: Wendy Elisheva Somerson (Wes), Jo Kent Katz, and Resmaa Menakem
"Just as it has always been possible to look away, it is always possible to stop looking away.”
- Omar El Akkad
"Collective pain demands collective hearts: spaces where we can come together to witness, hold, and metabolize the weight of what modernity has made unspeakable.
- Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
Intro / what this course is about
In the midst of a third year of mass displacement, starvation and genocide in Palestine, and amid the broader context of imperialism, fascism, expanding violence and war around the world, how can we…
This matters now more than ever. The violence done in the name of Jewish safety continues to expand. Doing this work moves us toward possibilities of collective liberation.
History Lives Within Our Bodies
We will gather together to respond to these guiding questions by engaging in a deep read of Wendy Elisheva Somerson's An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing -- a book that grapples with the way that history lives within our bodies (and will be reenacted until we heal) and explores an emergent Judaism beyond Zionism. Together, we'll create space to co-metabolize our grief and moral injury, be more attuned and responsive with ourselves and each other, and feel a sense of belonging that is created not by militarized nation states but by our shared care and collective healing.
We chose the title People of the Body and the Book because Jews are known as the people of the book - for our highly intellectual and intellectualized way of being in the world - sometimes to our own detriment. Learning to be in our bodies and healing through the body is very much what Wes’s book is about, and what Wes believes is needed to bring about authentic Jewish healing from Zionism and in general. As Naomi Klein said in her endorsement of the book, “this may well be the missing piece for breaking the pattern of violence undergirding Israeli apartheid and occupation.”
In the midst of a third year of mass displacement, starvation and genocide in Palestine, and amid the broader context of imperialism, fascism, expanding violence and war around the world, how can we…
- Come together as Jews to transmute our grief and trauma into healing, solidarity, safety, belonging, empowerment and action?
- Lean into the Jewish values that underpin collective liberation rather than exceptionalism?
- Explore what becomes possible when we engage in collective processing and co-regulation as core strategies to resist isolation, overwhelm, and gaslighting?
- Understand the ways that our ancestral lineages have shaped our current collective identities and feel into what’s possible when we sort through the burdens and gifts of those lineages?
- Move from complicity and moral injury to sacred solidarity?
- And, central to the intention of this course, how can we enlist our bodies in this work of individual and collective healing?
This matters now more than ever. The violence done in the name of Jewish safety continues to expand. Doing this work moves us toward possibilities of collective liberation.
History Lives Within Our Bodies
We will gather together to respond to these guiding questions by engaging in a deep read of Wendy Elisheva Somerson's An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing -- a book that grapples with the way that history lives within our bodies (and will be reenacted until we heal) and explores an emergent Judaism beyond Zionism. Together, we'll create space to co-metabolize our grief and moral injury, be more attuned and responsive with ourselves and each other, and feel a sense of belonging that is created not by militarized nation states but by our shared care and collective healing.
We chose the title People of the Body and the Book because Jews are known as the people of the book - for our highly intellectual and intellectualized way of being in the world - sometimes to our own detriment. Learning to be in our bodies and healing through the body is very much what Wes’s book is about, and what Wes believes is needed to bring about authentic Jewish healing from Zionism and in general. As Naomi Klein said in her endorsement of the book, “this may well be the missing piece for breaking the pattern of violence undergirding Israeli apartheid and occupation.”
Details
This course is being offered on line. Beginning in June, we will gather on the second and fourth Sundays of the month at 4 pm pacific time / 7 pm eastern for 2 hours. Course will run for a total of 12 sessions.
Each group will begin with a grounding practice and check-ins, followed by a deep dive into the content of the current book chapter, supported by ritual, somatic and ancestral practices that encourage embodied metabolism of the material and co-regulation with the group.
Please note: while we will be using somatic and Jewish ritual practices inspired by the book to co-metabolize together, we will not be doing the practices that Wes describes in the book. If you are interested more specifically in those practices, we highly recommend that you check out Wes's group offering Ruach.
Sliding scale and pay what you can options are available. No-one turned away for lack of funds.
Schedule
We will meet on the second and fourth Sunday of every month at 4 pm pacific / 7 pm eastern, beginning on June 14th. All meetings will be for two hours and will take place on zoom.
Learning Style
We will be using a “depth education” approach for this course. You can learn more about it here and also in this short video. In this approach the course content is much more about your reactions to the material than the material itself. Whereas mastery education is about “filling the cup” with knowledge, depth education is much more about “peeling the onion” and witnessing with compassion the layers underneath. Depth education is more about confronting our denials and composting our grief rather than confronting ignorance. It requires different tools and toys than mastery education, and is more about collectively creating a depth of understanding and self-reflection rather than identifying solutions or next steps.
Individual Sessions
To support your integration of the course work, in addition to the 12 group meetings you will have an opportunity to schedule a 1:1 session with one of the facilitators. Additional details will be provided after the course begins.
Group Size
Up to 18 participants will be enrolled into this first cohort.
Who this group is for
This is a Jewish affinity space for those who are on an anti-Zionist un/learning path. You are welcome whether you are just beginning or have been engaging in this work for a long time. While we think everyone, Jews and non Jews alike, has our work to do in this moment, for this course we are prioritizing Jewish healing and un/learning.
Facilitators
Ayelet Marinovich is a pediatric speech-language therapist, parent educator, grief support facilitator, and a white, able-bodied, anti-zionist Ashkenazi Jewish woman based on Muwekma Ohlone land, colonially known as the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work is about holding space and building ritual into the every day. She is the founder of Learn With Less®, a parent education company helping educators and new families support early development and family connection by finding magic in the mundane, everyday objects and routines of life. As Ayelet has navigated her own anti-zionist identity, she has frequently turned to her own values as an individual, allowing them to guide how she shows up as a parent, business owner, ritualist, and community member. In order to move forward (or even stand still), she believes we must additionally connect to our collective humanity.
Noah Goldberg is a Somatic Practitioner, anti-zionist Ashkenazi Jew, ritualist and baker living on Nipmuc and Pocomtuc land in Western, MA. In addition to politicized somatic work which he’s been doing for over 12 years, Noah plays on a farm processing botanical herbs every summer. Noah is committed to the lifelong work of learning to listen in new ways, transforming ancestral healing into engagement and practicing steadiness amidst waves of change. Noah spends his free time dancing in a boyband and baking and is training to become an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT).
Stacey Prince is a psychologist and somatics practitioner living on the stolen lands of the Duwamish and Coast Salish peoples in what is colonially known as Seattle, WA. She is a white, queer, currently able bodied, anti-zionist / anti-occupation Ashkenazi Jew and a visitor on these lands, with a lifelong commitment to examining and dismantling her complicity with whiteness, settler-colonialism and modernity. She founded and stewards The Living Room, a collective of politicized healers. In addition to psychotherapy she offers supervision, consultation, group workshops and collective healing spaces, and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington.
Guest speakers
We are honored to have the following guests joining us:
- Activist, organizer, somatics practitioner and author of An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing Wendy Elisheva Somerson (Wes)
- Healer, educator and ritualist Jo Kent Katz
- Therapist, somatic healer and author of My Grandmother's Hands:: Racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies Resmaa Menakem
Resource Exchange
We are offering three tiers of payment for this course - $2,000, $1,500 and $1,000 - and will ask you to select which one is right for you based on this economic justice sliding scale framework. Payment plans of 4 installments over the first 4 months are available. We are also offering 2-3 pay what you can or pro bono spots.
Mutual Aid
A percentage of registration fees directed to Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and/or US Palestine Mental Health Network.
To Register
To apply, please complete this form. Applications will be accepted through June 5th, and we will let you know by June 8th if you have been accepted into this first cohort.
Questions? Please email [email protected]