On April 4 at 1 pm EST, Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg will discuss her Evolve essay, "Reunderstanding Jewish Historical Trauma: Moving from the River to the Watershed." There is no charge required to register for an Evolve web conversation. Participants can interact with the speaker, making comments and asking questions.

Rosenberg argues that Jewish history is not an unbroken sequence of suffering, culminating in the Holocaust. Rosenberg presents an alternative picture that can help us heal from our trauma. Jewish identity can become a positive embrace of a rich heritage, rather than a negative reaction to antisemitism. In this conversation, coming a few weeks before Pesah, Rosenberg will offer framing and ideas to support integrating collective healing practices into the seder.

Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg
Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg currently resides on Dakota land, also home to the Anishinaabe, known as South Minneapolis. She was raised on Lenape land, in the Philadelphia suburbs, by Ken z”l and Shelley, accidental organizers who taught her that Jewish communities should be life-giving and values-aligned, and that it is up to us to build them. She became a Reconstructionist rabbi in order to learn our people’s diverse and nuanced histories, and create spaces, ritual and organizing that help transform our relationships to past, present and future. She has worked as a national organizer at Bend the Arc: Jewish Action and as a collective member of the Radical Jewish Calendar project. She has served and learned from: the visionary young people at Keshet’s LGBTQIA Teen Shabbatonim, the rabbis and members of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Jewish Congregation at SCI-Phoenix Prison. She authored an Introduction to Trauma, Healing and Resilience for Rabbis, Jewish Educators and Organizers, published by Reconstructing Judaism.

About Evolve
Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations is an initiative of Reconstructing Judaism. We seek to promote the ongoing evolution of the Jewish community by launching collective, communal conversations about the urgent issues of our day. To that end, Evolve brings multiple voices together to listen to one another’s point of view and to interact respectfully. In an era when it has become ever more difficult to remain open to viewpoints that differ from our own, Evolve cultivates covenantal conversations even when we disagree. In this way, we hope to enhance the ongoing evolution of Jewish civilization. Learn more on our Evolve website. 

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1. Providing participants with all the session materials ahead of time
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