Taking the State out of the Body is a guidebook in deconstructing nationalism through trauma-informed praxis. Embedded in the political theory and practice of Jewish anti-Zionism, it invites readers of all backgrounds to build an embodied sense of safety that has the power to make militarized borders, policing, and nation-states obsolete. We need the resources offered in this book: from understanding geopolitical impacts of intergenerational trauma, to self-regulation in conflict, to transformative approaches to harm, to cultivating long-haul relationships, to building solidarity across our movements. The book’s framework is situated in the lineages of healing justice and politicized healers including many antifascist Ashkenazi Jewish practitioners in 1930s Europe.
Today, as the terms “somatics” and “trauma” have been mainstreamed, Taking the State out of the Body is a timely offer to move from individual awareness to collective action. Weaving anti-imperialist orientations to historical events with embodiment theory, each chapter opens with a connection to a plant or body part and closes with a guide to practices that fuel resistance and resilience. This book will equip you with the tools you need to move from rugged individualist models of self-help/preservation to liberatory frameworks of collective care and joint struggle.
What People Are Saying
“Taking the State out of the Body brilliantly illuminates exactly how cultural patterns of individualism fuel and uphold fascism, zionism, racism, ableism, and the other forces that shape the current structures of war and extraction we are so desperately trying to survive and resist. Eliana Rubin skillfully shows how radical frameworks like somatic healing and transformative justice can help us understand how the infrastructure of violence—the State itself—is implanted in our very psyches and bodies, and what it takes to root it out so that we can become the people we need to be to fight back and build a new world. This book is an immense contribution to resistance movements, which are in great need of politicized healing approaches as we face ecological crisis and collapse.” Dean Spade, author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the next)
“An important and on time contribution to the somatic field. In Taking the State out of the Body Rubin takes readers through the intricate landscape of embodied resistance and the intersections of identity. Rooted in their experience of Jewish identity and faith and community organizing, this book shows the impact of colonization, trauma and ethno-nationalism on our bodies and reminds us that the way to liberation is always through feeling and towards each other.” Prentis Hemphill, founder of the Embodiment Institute, author of What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World
“Wracked by its spectacular violence, we don’t always think about how the State intercedes in our mundane embodiment, severing our necessary interdependence. With a queer anti-Zionist Jewish approach, Taking the State out of the Body helps us train our minds towards doykeit, or hereness, where we can inhabit an iterative practice of resistance and repair through coregulation and care. This book is so necessary right now as we grapple with new and old generational trauma and face the seeming impossibility of exiting the cycles of violence. As Eliana Rubin shows us, we won’t be ready for liberation until we find our way back to each other in our bodies in healing relationship. In this book, we learn so many models of worldly, spiritual, and more-than-human survival and thriving.” Shuli Branson, author of Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life, host of The Breakup Theory podcast
“What an incredible resource Eliana has given us with Taking the State out of the Body. While it takes us intimately through the experience of a Jewish embodied experience of moving beyond Zionism, it is also so clear how this text can help everyone with a body think beyond the boundaries of the State and into deep relationship with the earth.” adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
“Taking the State Out of the Body is a passionate treatise on the revolutionary power of healing and Jewish identity. Instead of turning to the world of states, prisons, and militaries, Eliana Rubin shows us how the only solution to our shared history of trauma is a politics of mutual liberation, a battle by everyone for everyone.” Shane Burley, co-author of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism.
About the Author
Eliana builds transgressive relationships with bodies, land, and lineage through their work as a somatic practitioner, politicized facilitator, anti-Zionist organizer, and full-spectrum doula. Their practice centers queer and trans organizers in developing embodied leadership as well as Jewish organizers in healing intergenerational trauma for the sake of collective liberation. They were born and raised by the dramatic landscapes and freaks of the San Francisco Bay Area, and are now rooted in the red clay of Durham, North Carolina.