Red Emma’s

Dr. Wendy (Wes) 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.