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

Written by Dr. Wendy Elisheva Somerson, PhD, this book offers a bold, embodied exploration of Jewish healing that is unapologetically anti-Zionist and deeply rooted in Jewish spiritual traditions. It examines how Jewish history—marked by persecution, antisemitism, and survival—lives on in Jewish bodies as unresolved, intergenerational trauma. Through a body-based, faith-informed lens, the book invites readers to understand how ancestral grief and fear shape present-day identities, relationships, and political realities, including the enactment of power and harm toward others. Healing is framed not only as a personal process, but as a spiritual and political reclamation aimed at liberation, justice, and collective responsibility.

Key Features

• Embodied Approach to Trauma: Explores how historical and intergenerational trauma is held in the body and offers somatic tools for processing, releasing, and preventing its transmission across generations.
• Jewish Spiritual Framework: Grounds healing practices in Jewish ritual, spirituality, and ethical values, reconnecting faith with care, dignity, and resilience.
• Critical Engagement with History and Power: Examines the tension between Jewish histories of persecution and the contemporary realities of Israeli state power, encouraging reflective and courageous inquiry.
• Healing Shame and Identity: Addresses internalized shame related to belonging, assimilation, complicity, and notions of being “too much” or “not enough” within Jewish identity.
• Skills-Based Practices: Provides practical guidance for cultivating safety, resourcing the nervous system, setting spiritually grounded intentions, and navigating difficult conversations.
• Liberatory Vision: Articulates a vision of Judaism beyond Zionism, inviting readers to reclaim Jewish identity and faith in service of justice, care, and collective liberation.

Product Details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DFGB2H1N
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ North Atlantic Books
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 13, 2025
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8889841883