It Could Happen Here - Anti-Zionism and Ancestral Healing with Ami Weintraub, Part 2
Episode Date: August 4, 2023Shereen is once again joined by author Ami Weintraub to talk about their work in ancestral healing, building a diasporist Jewish community, and their new incredible book To The Ghosts Who Are Still Li...ving, available now. Â Â See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to It Could Happen Here. Yes, I still sound like this. It
was the same day for me. But thank you for joining me again. Today is part two of a conversation I'm having with Ami Weintraub about anti-Zionism and why it's important.
And today I want to talk about their work and how much of anti-Zionism is actually based in ancestral healing.
And yeah, I want to just tell you guys a bunch of good stuff because
Ami's work I think is really important. So welcome back. Hi.
Thanks for having me. Hello.
Of course. I think when we first started talking about wanting to record together, you mentioned
that talking about ancestral healing was really integral in even your definition of anti-Zionism.
Can you kind of explain why? Sure. Yeah, I feel like maybe it's also like the other way around. Like
my coming into like anti-Zionism led me into a path of ancestral healing.
Because I think something that we talked about like in the last episode is that a lot of the
motivation for at least like the early origins of Zionism was the desire for
safety and the desire to like have cultural expression,
like Jewish cultural expression be possible.
And so I started to think like, why were those the desires at the time?
started to think like why were those the desires at the time and sort of moving back into my family's history which so much of it has been like silenced because of like the pain of the history
and also in some ways because we've been told you know like you have a place you have the home you live in now
and you have the state of Israel and you don't have to think about where you came from right you
know and so a lot of my work has been kind of like opening up that conversation of no like but where
where did my great-grandparents like actually come from like what was that place why did they leave
what is the longing that we that we have for safety the longing we have
for home and what does it look like to actually turn that longing back to yeah for my family like
our homes in eastern europe and that's kind of where i've been positioning a lot of my work these
days yeah i think you bring up a good point about how even having Israel there almost erases the history of a lot of Jewish people, right?
Because it kind of just like, yeah, it's almost as if like, oh, this is where we all come from and this is where we all end up.
And it's just simply not true.
Can you tell me, well, first, could you define ancestral healing to me and what that means to you?
I feel like for me, ancestral healing has been the process of opening up to the voices of my ancestors and allowing them to really speak to me and starting to see that the pain and the grief and just the sorrow that I was carrying in my own body wasn't just my own
yeah and that sort of growing awareness has become like the avenue to which I can do ancestral
healing which sometimes looks like learning a ton about like a specific Jewish practice that perhaps someone in
my family at some point did and we've now forgotten or sometimes it looks like
researching on Wikipedia like the flowers that grew in my family's like
shuttle in Eastern Europe and sometimes it looks like just crying and being sad about like the things
that we've lost. And sometimes it looks like talking to my ancestors, like in meditation
or trance states and offering them back the healing that I'm doing in this generation.
offering them back the healing that I'm doing in this generation.
Yeah, I love that. I love especially the flowers, I think really got me. It's just like those little details are so important and really define a place. I mean, I think ancestral healing
is so important for like most people in general. I think it's kind of taken,
important for like most people in general I think it's kind of taken maybe not taken too seriously by some normies I don't know but uh even for me I mean our histories are very different but
I think what you said about like recognizing that like your pain is not just your own like
you're carrying a lot of a burden generation from generation to generation and I think
acknowledging that and learning more
about yourself anyone can do that if you don't it doesn't have to be a certain I don't know I
think that's what I always kind of want to get across that like even for me I found ancestral
healing to be really important I define it in a different way but it's still like I don't know a
lot about my family's history. So that's
been a little bit like a huge origin of that is because like, there's a lot of confusion there,
but I love that you are taking as like an internal journey and also like recognizing
that there's a connection there. I think people don't look at it as much as I want them to,
I guess. I think it's a little bit too petty for people and it really isn't it's just about like um evolving and knowing yourself better like when you really
when it really comes down to it totally yeah and and for me too like so like a lot of in my book
I talk a lot about like birch trees and the flowers that grow in this places of my where my ancestors were in like
the lakes and the frogs and a big reason for that too is because like my ancestors aren't
there anymore like there are no more like Jewish people in those places necessarily
to like tell the story so when I think about like how do I really learn about who my ancestors were
or what their practices and their culture was it's like oh at least I can see what they saw
you know I can see the trees I can see the frogs and the land is holding that story for me if I
can just open up and listen to it so that's also been like part of it for me as
well as like opening up like opportunity for like connection and joy even in the face of a lot of
destruction um and again also like you're saying I like really think this is something that like
most people can do and is really enriching and would help us like
all kind of metabolize like so much of what has happened in the 20th century before the 20th
century just like there's been so much like disruption and violence like that's happened
for so many people yeah and still happening obviously and in america in like the dominant
american culture i think there's like a really big emphasis on like forgetting.
And just kind of being in this like present moment and not realizing that we've come from somewhere.
And I just really resist that, that like urge to forget.
And I, for me, that's also part of ancestral healing is like, how do we learn to remember?
Yeah, that's beautiful. of ancestral healing is like, how do we learn to remember? Yeah, that's beautiful.
I love that so much.
No, I think the thing that really made me realize that ancestral healing is extremely real and necessary was maybe like, I don't know how long ago it was, maybe like 10 years ago.
10 years ago, I learned something about a family member that really put into context something that I was going through and that I have always felt and I'm just part of who I am. And I'm being vague
about it because it's just personal, but we could talk off mic if you want. But for audience purposes,
the point that I'm trying to get across is I learned something and I learned more about myself
and I was almost more at peace with how much I was struggling with what it was. And I let myself
be okay with how much I was struggling and the pain I was carrying because I recognized it wasn't
just mine. It was hers. So yeah, I think if you ask me what the whole point of life is, it's self, maybe not improvement's the right word, but like self-discovery and like, I don't know, nature and leaving a place better than you found it.
I think it's as simple as that.
I think it gets really convoluted with other things.
think it gets really convoluted with other things but but yeah as you said i think anyone can benefit from learning more because i i agree i think what you said about forgetting really resonated with me
so yeah i really like that and like america is built on forgetting like we're supposed to forget
like the genocide of uh indigenous peoples on this land we're supposed to forget like the genocide of indigenous peoples on this land
we're supposed to forget like the horrors of slavery we're supposed to just forget like
even what's happening right now um in our country um so i think the act of remembering
is like has so much power to shake like the current moment and to bring us to a new place it's ironic that like the biggest
slogan of one of america's most tragic events is don't forget when you think about it yeah
totally it's like oh this is the one thing you're gonna say yeah don't forget let's forget about
everything else though totally yeah and that's such a like that's our memory
like yeah and um in germany they do have a lot about like memory culture it's like a really
like specific term that they have and like we don't even have that yeah we don't even have
that term here in the u.s wait can you explain that to me a little bit if you know if you know
about it so germany does have like a big like culture around like remembering the atrocities of the holocaust
and and they call it like memory culture um so that's like monuments or um museums
just like how is like world war ii discussed how is the holocaust remembered and yeah like they remember a lot more than we do which is ironic and also not in some
ways um but yeah we don't even have that concept here in the same way um of like memory culture
like what is our cultural of remembering um and and i think obviously there has been some amount
of that around like yeah like indigenous history
and like black history um in relation to like monuments and thanksgiving and like all of those
things but um we don't have like really like memory culture like integrated into like a day-to-day
existence and in fact it's obviously being even fought against like in florida and other places like that
oh i just love that that idea of memory culture in general i've never heard of that
i love that so much and i mean just even thinking about it just as we're talking
uh germany has they refuse to forget an atrocity that they did right i think it's it's a little bit interesting
that in america they've forgotten about the atrocities they did and they want to not forget
about an atrocity that was done to them so it's almost like very victim-y of america if you ask me
um because it's really easy not to forget when someone wronged you but I think it's really
convenient to forget when you you know destroy the entire civilization you know what I mean to
put it lightly yeah exactly and I'm not trying to say to take 9-11 lightly at all I think what
happened was atrocious and terrible.
But when you think about memory culture
and what Germany is so committed to remembering
versus America,
just a little interesting to me
now that I think about it.
And who committed who,
or who committed what, rather.
Before I get too rambly,
let's take our first break
and we'll be right back.
Before I get too rambly, let's take our first break and we'll be right back.
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And we're back with Ami. Ami, when we were talking about recording together,
in addition to ancestral healing, you talked about the importance of building a diasporous Jewish community that is committed
to solidarity with Palestinians and other marginalized people, generally through an
anarchist lens, and also building a safe community for Jews outside of Israel to counter the rhetoric
that the only place that's safe for Jews is Israel. And as you said, it generally leads to a large focus on anti-fascism and cultural
reclamation. So can you talk to me a little bit about that? And then there's certain communities
that you're a part of that I really want to get into, but let's start there.
Yeah. So kind of in this journey, I would say of saying, okay, like if we're going to be Jewish anti-Zionist we're going to be
Jewish anarchist like what does that materially look like like how do we put that into practice
and so yeah kind of honed in on those two aspects again of safety and culture and so a lot of my
work now is around thinking about like how do we create safety for Jews in the places where they
are living in diaspora development into like going to this like Jewish anti-Zionism and Jewish
anarchism trying to understand like what does it mean to like actually put this into practice
and or when I was thinking of that I was trying trying to think of like, how do we create safety for Jews in the places where they want to live in diaspora and also create the environment where Jewish culture is able to flourish.
a lot of Jewish communities that are like committed to like anti-fascism committed to solidarity with other marginalized peoples and also really committed to um like reclamation of
Jewish traditions um specifically by like more marginalized people within the Jewish community
as well um and I really see like those projects as like part of my like solidarity work even though it is supporting
like Jewish peoples in the day-to-day but ultimately it's creating a spaciousness where
Jews don't feel like they have to like cling on to Zionism in the ways that they were before
and I'm really curious also of like how to sort of
make that praxis more visible to the general left because i do um like a big part of like the book
i'm writing like there's a whole section of me talking about what it's like to have lived in Pittsburgh like before and after the tree of
life shooting where I was a teacher at the synagogue at the time that it happened um so my
life was like very impacted by this like really like horrible like act of violence like anti-semitic
violence um and the most shocking part was that like anti-semitism was occurring before
that happened and it still continued after like in pittsburgh specifically um so like the question
left me with is like are we actually addressing like the rise of anti-semitism in america today and that's why i want to like really talk about this
praxis of like addressing anti-semitism and allowing and creating space where jewish culture
can flourish like as a praxis that i'm curious for more people on the left to um understand as like vitally important like for Jewish people and also for solidarity with
Palestinians too um so that's that's my topic that I'm yeah very interested in right now
no I I love that I think it's so important what you're saying and so necessary to build a community
where Jewish people feel safe.
So yeah, they don't have to cling on to Zionism as a way to feel accepted or safe or belonged or belonging anywhere.
And in that way, it's really simple to see how that is intertwined with solidarity of Palestinians because it ultimately is saying like Israel is not the end-all be-all like we're at the
end of the day people going through shit have we have our cultures and we have to stick by each
other maybe that's a little bit elementary but I think what I'm trying to say is I really appreciate
that you have built this community and uh so committed to continuing to enrich it and
develop it because I think that's so essential, especially just considering like the idea
of Zionism in the first place, like that really pure intention that was there.
I think it's okay to still live on in certain areas because it was pure it
wasn't it wasn't about israel at all israel as it is today rather yeah so can you tell me about
this organization rage yeah so rage is this small collective called um that could understand for
rebellious anarchist young jews in the most basic sense we formed this
as like a sort of response to like the zionism that we were experiencing around us and a lot
of it like the word rage being like anger of like wow i can't believe like this is what's being sold
to us as like our liberation and what it formed into was
like after the tree of life shooting my sibling pretty much texted me and was like let's make
this thing happen again and we um started to create like more like political like jewish
anarchist like art and writing um and putting it on facebook um and people started responding to it and it really felt like
a piece of like the rising of like a jewish anarchist movement
um in this country right now a piece of many but something that kind of
um was like a a light or like a what's the phrase like
a light or like a what's the phrase like uh like a bat signal is the only way i can put it of like hey like all of you out there who
are thinking about like what jewish anarchism might mean are thinking about like what like
organizing um could look like when it's based on our culture and our practices and has like deep reverence for that instead of like an embarrassment around our practices all of you who are like creative
and artistic and that's your mode of engagement of engaging like we can come together and we can
like create something new and that has just like that desire has just grown since then and is being reflected in so much organizing right now.
And Rage itself is like, we're not really doing as much as a collective anymore.
But definitely that spirit is like living on in a lot of like in the book I'm writing and like the work that my siblings doing and a lot of like the artistic creation that's happening around Jewish anarchism.
I love that. That's so cool.
I'm really grateful that out of something so horrific that you went through,
you were able to come together with your sibling
and almost use that as fuel to really come together.
I think it's really beautiful.
Yeah.
And I think that's like, that felt like the challenge in that moment
was like are we gonna use this as a moment to like support the police who you know killed the
shooter we're gonna use as a moment to like buddy up with the politicians who are trying to like
befriend the jewish community now all of a sudden Or are we going to use this as a moment,
like a big phrase that was being thrown around in Pittsburgh
was like safety and solidarity.
Are we going to use this as a moment
to like really affirm that message
and to really like speak to the danger
that we are feeling as Jews in this country
and the resilience that we have
and the resistance and the revolutionary power we have
to like um
sort of call out the systems that are creating that um and i'm really grateful yeah that my
sibling and others around me were able to like create that path through a more revolutionary
mode yeah oh it's important especially yeah you don't want to see your community used as a tool for politics. I think having that be a product of such a tragedy is shameful.
sense of like reality to be honest like and not get caught up in like what ever reality I don't know politicians or the media or whatever the shit wants you to believe in
yeah yeah so a few years after rage kind of continued to grow I was able to found this community center called rut zone center for healing and resistance
in pittsburgh and it's a queer jewish anarchist community center the only one believe it or not
the u.s um maybe in the world that's cool and also sad you know what i mean like i love it
so i also i'm disappointed in us yes and it was like obviously a lot of community
support like like I'd say like I founded it but it was more like I had the ability to like
kind of pull people together pull together a space get grant money like do that type of work work um and the idea is really like when we are like um in political struggle we need to resist
but we also need to heal and i think i was just also feeling like a lot in and this was like in
2019 ish so the like integration of like healing and more like therapeutic techniques i felt like
um into like political frameworks like wasn't happening as much at the time as i think it is
now even and just really claiming like we can't do political work without like our like healing work
and again like that creating a space where we could engage in like
anti-fascist organizing we could engage in solidarity with other like marginalized people
and we could also really honor jewish tradition and let that be like a foundation for us
and yeah i ended up leaving the community this time last year to like pursue other things but it still
is existing in pittsburgh and it's still like very much like a hub for um not just jewish people too
but like a lot of people who are engaging in healing and resistance work yeah it's just i
love that it exists uh and also just i was thinking, actually, I'm going to hold that thought. And I want to take our second break. I have to cut back and see what I was going to say. So enjoy these ads.
Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show,
where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a
chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.
You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens.
So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the
conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and
very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill.
Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented
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of Latin America.
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I know you.
Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America
since the beginning of time.
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Okay, we're back.
I had a coffee, and now I'm back.
I was going to say that I love that all those things can be true at the same time, like Jewish solidarity and Palestinian solidarity and remembering and practicing like traditional rituals and culture and traditions and practices and all this stuff.
I think it's nice to remember that all of those can be true at the same time, because I think especially now people identify anti-Zionism
with anti-Semitism and I think it's really important to to see a community of Jewish
people like embracing their religion and culture and loving it and at the same time supporting
Palestine because it's just the clearest example of how Zionism is not a factor in your love of your culture and your religion.
I think it's a really good example of just, I don't know,
demonstrating how much of a falsity that is in the first place
to equate those two together,
when really Zionism itself is anti-Semitic,
as we mentioned in the last episode.
I also want to give us plenty of time
to talk about your work and as much as you want to tell us about your new book to the ghosts who
are still living it's out now everybody go get it it's a book of essays and yeah can you if you want
to um tell me how you came about even starting to write these essays and what motivated you to embark on this journey?
Yeah, so I just came out today with this book, To the Ghosts Who Rest Still Living.
And it's my first book that I've written.
And it's pretty much a collection of essays that is broken up into three sections.
pretty much a collection of essays that is broken up into three sections the first section is like stories of my ancestors in eastern europe and their lives and them coming to america and like
that process the second section is my stories of living in pittsburgh during the rise of
antisemitism and the third section is returning back to my ancestors' shuttle, which is a village in Lithuania, last summer with my sister.
And kind of grappling with these questions of like, do I belong here?
Like, what is this land? Where am I from? Like, where do I, where can I be in the world?
So I guess like the clearest moment of when I felt like I needed to write this was
during the summer of 2020 and there was an incident that I write about in the book of
Nazis coming to like the anarchist bookstore in Pittsburgh which was like a few blocks from my
house at the time and they were I don't even remember like exactly what their posters said but they were handing out
these like um anti-anarchist posters that like probably had something antisemitic on them also
or just like that vibe was there and they were just flyering and the cops came up and shook hands with these Nazis and let them stay.
Wow.
I mean,
I'm surprised,
but still,
well,
exactly.
And then the Nazis actually ended up pulling a gun on some of the anti-fascist protesters who were there and didn't actually end up like
shooting anyone.
But that was the scene of what had happened.
And,
but still the fact that that he whoever that was was able to do that
and the cops were like hey buddy
yeah exactly
just to make it more clear how shit
the cops are
totally
and so yeah I just witnessed that all happen
and it just kind of felt like
the last
the last straw I guess the last thing and I just felt like the last um the last straw I guess the last thing and I just felt like kind of ripped
open inside um realizing that the anti-semitism that I had been researching like in my own
family's history was like happening right now like to me in this moment and I just had this feeling that like I was like
I don't know if people on the left or people in general are like really seeing what's happening
you know really like understanding like the fear that I have like as a Jewish person right now
and I'm not sure if people are like understanding that connection to like the contemporary fascism
that's happening in the U.S. to the fascism that my ancestors experienced um and it made me really
sad and it made me like really feel so much pain because I just didn't want my family stories to be
like forgotten or not to be remembered in this moment when I think we're trying to understand
what's happening in this country and like my family has already gone through a lot of what's
happened you know yeah and we're being attacked now in that way um I mean as far as our history
books go anti-semitism ended when the holocaust ended right exactly so the u.s like saved the day and now we're the
heroes exactly i think that's literally the narrative that a lot of people believe in this
in this country which is so unfortunate because it just yeah it's when so when incidents like
this happen it's not just like out of the blue it's because there's this lingering hatred and fascism that's been there and just growing and evolving and going undetected, even though it's so obvious.
It's just become, I don't know, maybe I was going to say more subtle, but at this point it's not subtle at all.
They're very outright about it.
But I think it's like almost become like normalized or something.
Exactly, exactly.
But no, I thank you for sharing that.
And I mean, I can imagine that potentially this book was maybe a healthy process or heal a little bit yourself that that happened.
Definitely, yeah.
At a certain point, I was writing these essays and I was like,
I don't even need to do anything with this. This has been the most healing project that I've
already done. And so also my hope with this book is that the healing that it's offered me, perhaps
it can offer to others. And I've kind of been thinking of it as like in Jewish myth, there's like this idea of like a golem or a golem.
That's like this monster created from the mud with like the word Emmet
written on its forehead, which means truth.
And this monster is like raised from the mud to protect the Jewish community
of Prague against antisemitism.
Whoa. Yeah. It's a really cool story. That's cool. Prague against antisemitism. Whoa.
Yeah, it's a really cool story.
That's cool.
That's so cool.
Yeah.
So I've kind of been like, oh, I wonder if like this book can kind of be like a golem,
you know, like this kind of anti-fascist monster, mud creature made from words yeah that can like offer healing and maybe um offer some
like protection in this moment um so that's that's my greatest hope for this book right now
that's first of all sick about the mud monster love that love that for you love that for me love that for everybody um
and second i think that's a beautiful intent and i think it 100 will help others heal and even if
the person reading it is not jewish i think it's important to remember and to realize that you
still have very real fear being a jew person living in America or anywhere else,
you know, because anti-Semitism didn't get solved when Hitler shot himself. I'm sorry, guys.
And so I think this book can help a lot of people. And I really encourage everyone to go buy it now.
We're recording today on August 1st, and today is when it was released so by the time you
hear it it'll be out and ready to be read i just highly encourage you to really dive into ami's
work because it's just so important and so healing for everybody um thank you of course i i really
appreciate you taking the time to open yourself up and I because I know
a lot of these things have really painful origins and so I appreciate that you're willing to talk
about them yeah thank you yeah and I also hope that like yeah like this book also can sort of
be like a window for like leftists who want to like integrate more like jewish history
into their anti-fascism that it can be like a window for that and i do hope like also that it
can like also build bridges with like other peoples who have experienced genocide experience
displacement from lands experienced like experience ongoing like fear for their safety where they are
in the world and i hope that also by sharing like my family stories that like um those bridges can
start to like be built and we can start to create more community around that shared history as well
to really build strong allyship with the jewish community actually understanding what that
means and actually understanding what the jewish community is going through and the fears they have
i think that is where you have to start so so yeah i just i'm so glad to have had this conversation
and i know people will benefit from it and I 100% know people will benefit from your book.
Again, that is To the Ghosts Who Are Still Living.
You can buy it now through your publisher, which is Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness.
Nice.
I'll put all the links in the description of the episodes on these website and all the good
stuff but yeah thank you again for joining me today i'm gonna probably drag you back at some
point just to continue talking to you because you've been lovely awesome thank you yeah i'd
be happy to be back on hell yeah i did a good job if you said that i'm kidding um do you have
any kind of social media you want people to follow you at
or just the book I do yes let me look at it I'm really bad at social media no same same I'm trying
to be better okay you can also follow me on instagram amyweintraub3 that's a-m-i-w-e-i-n-t-r-a-u-b and the number three and i'm like i said like the work i'm
doing i hope is like conversation starters is like ways to build connections so also this was
interesting to you feel free to like reach out and say hey and yeah and my voice is just like
one of many on this topic and I hope that yeah
people continue to study and learn and explore the nuances of of what I've shared today thank you
and a big reason why I wanted to have these conversations and have them as conversations
is to also illustrate that it's possible to talk about these, like Zionism in
particular, which is this very taboo, almost like weird word to say out loud to a lot of people.
It's really helpful to talk about it casually and openly because that's how we're going to
understand it. That's how we're going to understand anti-Zionism and why Zionism isn't great right
now and all this other stuff. So I hope that someone took that away and will continue
to have these conversations in their personal lives because this is just a fucking podcast
you know but real life is what matters um so yeah that's all i have to say um thank you again
you are the best uh and go buy ami's book, To the Ghosts Who Are Still Living.
Go buy it.
Now!
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