Cognitive, somatic & ritual practice toward Jewish recovery
“It is the heartbroken that break cycles.” - Issa Bataj
This container arose out of our own experiences as white Ashkenazi anti-Zionist Jews witnessing the ongoing genocide of Palestinians since Oct 7, 2023 as well as studying the much longer history of occupation, violence and genocide. We also have experienced and witnessed ruptures among our relationships with friends, colleagues and family members, and know we are not alone in this being one of the most difficult times to be Jewish in our lifetimes. In saying this, we acknowledge the stress, relationship rupture and spiritual crisis experienced by Jews in the last six months is incomparable to the magnitude of suffering experienced by Palestinians over 75 years of occupation and especially since October 7th, 2023.
Our premise is all survivors and perpetrators of Zionism will need healing and recovery. In addition to Palestinians who are experiencing ongoing assault, displacement and genocide, this includes Jews in the US, Israel, and worldwide who are and have been complicit, whether explicitly or simply because we vote and pay taxes. We are clear that historic and present day Jewish grief and trauma has been and continues to be weaponized, and that “Jewish safety” is used to justify the ongoing assault on Palestinians. This includes those of us who unambiguously define ourselves as anti-Zionist or anti-occupation; those who are struggling, learning, witnessing, grappling with the moral injury; and those who have not yet emerged from the spell of Zionism.
This course asks, what does healing look like for Jewish survivors of Zionism? Akin to dismantling internalized white supremacy, the invitation is to dismantle the intersecting, internalized supremacist constructs of of Zionism, whiteness, Ashkenazi normativity, ableism, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism; and to examine the internalized and external structures of nation states, imperialism and settler colonialism. We aim to do so not just cognitively and intellectually, but also in a sturdy container of somatic practices, ritual, and deep empathic witnessing. Recognizing that the soul wound of relational separation and disconnection underlies Zionism, as it does all forms of settler-colonialism, together we’ll practice deactivating the affective, cognitive and relational patterns that reinforce that separation and fuel dehumanization and violence done in our names.
We are clear that through the colonial process of assimilation into whiteness, combined with intergenerational trauma, many Ashkenazi Jews have lost connection with body and earth based ways of being and relating to self, other humans, the more than human world (trees, waters, land, animals, plants, elements, the whole earth, etc), our earth and body honoring ancestors, and the Divine. As such, this course intends to support participants in not just developing cognitive understanding of Zionism and its alternatives, but also recovering and regenerating the capacity for sacred and honorable connection, reciprocity, presence, and intimacy with all of our relations. In this way, we will collectively cultivate secure attachment in relationship to all these layers of relationality.
Each month we’ll offer a topic for focus, with several resources (articles, videos, podcasts) to engage with beforehand. The outline of monthly topics follows below. The live sessions will be sharing, composting and metabolizing around that topic, drawing on a combination of discussion (both large group and smaller break-outs), somatic practices and ritual. We will offer between-session care and integration practices, as well as opportunities for co-un/learning and support.
While offering rigorous intellectual learning, the purpose of this container is not to replace one paradigm, political stance or set of beliefs with another. Rather, we hope to engage in depth conversations, balancing intellectual learning with building the somatic, affective and relational capacities needed to sit with the complex interwoven crises of this time with discernment and accountability. Our work has been deeply influenced by the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective and the book, Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado de Oliveria (who inspired the title of this course and with whose consent we use this reference). This way of engaging may feel quite different than a support or therapy group, grief circle, workshop, or other therapeutic or learning environments you have participated in. Our commitment is to move forward together into a deep excavation and exploration without clear “answers,” and it is important for you to be sure you consent to this process as you consider taking this course. And we will keep our responsibility at the fore - to ourselves, to each other, to those who are on the receiving end of genocidal violence, to all the children whose lives have been impacted or ended, and to the earth. LIVE SESSION DATES
We will meet on zoom on the fourth Sunday of each month, from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm Pacific / 1 pm to 3:30 pm Eastern time.
Session dates and topics are as follows:
July 28, 2024 | Opening Session - Building Container
Aug 25 | Moral injury / grief / death practices for Zionism
Sept 22 | Anti-Semitism
Oct 27 | Jewish trauma and exceptionalism
Nov 24 | Christian Zionism and Hegemony
Dec 22 | White supremacy and Ashkenormativity
Jan 26, 2025 | Understanding settler colonialism in Israel/Palestine
Feb 23 | The question of indigeneity
Mar 23 | Belonging in the diaspora
April 27 | What does "healing from Zionism" look like?
May 25 | What will become of Judaism? aka “the Ancient Future of Judaism” / Envisioning and Doula-ing a post Zionist Judaism
June 22 | Closing Session & Ritual
ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS OF THIS VESSEL
Resource hub
Chevruta (study groups/partners)
Guest scholars, cultural workers, healers/practitioners, ritualists including
Group communication channel for optional sharing and connecting between sessions
WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?
This course is an affinity space for Jewish folx, and is best suited for white, Ashkenazi Jews who feel ready to do the work of unpacking Zionism and all its related siblings of supremacy with both rigor and support. If you are Jewish and have Mizrahi or Sephardic lineage and/or are BIPOC, you may feel that this is not the right container for you as you have different lineages, lived experiences and relationships with Zionism/white supremacy culture/settler-colonialism. However, if you are a Sephardic, Mizrahi and/or BIPOC Jew who identifies as white adjacent, white presumed, or simply that this container speaks to you, you are welcome to apply! We are also happy to discuss this further if you have questions.
INVESTMENT / EXCHANGE
The exchange for this course is $3,000 ($250 month ‐ actual cost), $2400 ($200/month) or $1800 ($150/month). We are also offering two additional no charge or “PWYC” (Pay What You Can) spots. We will be redistributing 5% to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund. Please refer to this economic justice sliding scale framework to discern the exchange amount that is aligned for you. We will set up automatic payments once registrations are complete.
ACCOUNTABILITY COUNCIL
We are grateful to and in accountability practice with the following council of elders, healers and scholars: Amnah Ali, Dino Siwek, Sharon Stein, and wes/Wendy Elisheva Somerson. We may choose to add to this council as needs arise throughout the course of our work together.
TO APPLY
If you are ready to apply, please complete this form. Applications are open until Wednesday, July 17th at 8pm EST and we will be in touch no later than Wednesday, July 24th at 8pm EST to let you know if you are a part of this first cohort. Max group size is 15.
INFO SESSION
Please join us for optional info session on Wednesday, July 10th at 10:30am PST / 1:30pm EST on zoom.
Stacey Prince, PhD, SEPStacey (she/her) 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 queer, an anti-occupation Ashkenazi Jew and a visitor on these lands with a lifelong commitment to examining and dismantling her complicitness 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 healing spaces, and is an adjunct professor in the department of psychology at the University of Washington.
Simon Wolff, SEPSimon (they/he) is a politicized healer, ritualist, and artist weaving one-to-one and small group somatic, ancestral, and cultural healing vessels in service to collective liberation. They support Jewish people to cultivate embodied and animist resilience and relationality amidst lived and intergenerational trauma. Simon identifies as a white antiracist, antizionist, queer, trans, disabled person of the Ashkenazi Jewish diaspora. After living and tending on Anishinaabe land / Michigan for most of their life, they recently relocated to Nipmuc and Pocumtuc land known as Northampton, MA. To learn more about their work, visit www.simon-wolff.com.
