Being Jewish: Persecution and Perpetration

Persecution & Perpetration

Online | English

What will we be exploring in this Lab?

The complexity of being Jewish involves reconciling two very different strands of reality. One of these is the historical and current reality of persecution, how Jews have had to confront virulent hatred and Anti-Semitism across the centuries. Another critical aspect of coming to terms with Jewish identity involves recognizing how we as Jews have used our economic and social positions, in various countries, to participate in the oppression of others, actively or passively. This uncomfortable reality of how oppression lives in us through being both victims and perpetrators, and the relationship between the two, is the focus of this Lab.

Who is invited to participate?

We are inviting those with Jewish ancestry who may or may not identify as being Jewish. We also invite non-Jewish participants to witness and contribute their embodied responses to the lab process, becoming windows through which Jewish participants may be better able to see what remains hidden, as a way of informing the healing of the trauma. Participants will need to have a witness, digestion and integration practice; external resources to support their process; and a willingness to explore both the persecution and perpetration aspects of Being Jewish. The lab is not a substitute for a personal therapeutic process.

More about the journey of the Lab

We envision a Collective Trauma Integration journey that starts by building a safe, coherent group, accessing personal and collective resourcing throughout our journey. We will then focus on developing awareness of how the trauma of Being Jewish, from both the perspective of being persecuted and the experience of perpetrating trauma, lives in us on individual, ancestral and collective levels. The lab will then take on a highly emergent nature as, together, we sense and feel what is alive in us right now with regard to Being Jewish, deepen into further trauma integration and invite a movement towards repair and restoration.

When will we be meeting?

Monthly, for 1 hr 45 mins from 1600-1745 UK time; 0800-0945 Pacific time, Wednesdays.
  • February 7
  • February 21
  • March 13
  • April 3
  • May 1
  • June 5
  • July 3
  • July 31
  • Sept 4
  • October 9
  • November 6
  • December 4