Emergence in Emergency
Turning our tears into streams for a sea of social change
The past two months have been incredibly challenging. I appreciate everyone who has reached out and supported me -- and really all of us who are turning our tears into streams for social change. There is so much intense vulnerability right now, including my own vulnerability about sharing all of this with you. There’s also so much momentum that is coming from our mourning groups to create something sustainable, the Social Change Sanctuary. I’m really in awe of how this is emerging and unfolding with you all.
Powerlessness is one of the conditions that create lasting trauma. As my brilliant Palestinian journalist, scholar and friend Mariam Barghouti said, "The purpose of protracted conflict is to create despair. Keep heart, take a breath." In the face of so many horrors, coming together to mourn is a way that we can reduce the impacts of trauma, even secondary trauma, and help sustain our solidarity. Our mourning is medicine that we need to hold onto our humanity and create a more hopeful future.
Friends, do not get lost in hopelessness. Join me in taking concrete steps towards peace and justice. There are many ways of doing that, which I outline below. At this time, I am especially asking you to financially contribute to the pro-bono work we have been doing and will continue to do. Your financial support will enable us to keep supporting individuals, religious leaders and human rights advocates who are trying to figure a way through what feels like an impossible situation, and, at the same time, to respond to the crisis differently, to respond with mourning and mobilization.
🕯️Update from the Social Change Sanctuary 🕯️
After the atrocities on October 7th, I started holding collective mourning spaces with Palestinian, Arab-Jewish, Israeli and German-American co-hosts. In the past two months, over four hundred people have attended our grounding groups which include song, poetry, prayer, ritual and peer-counseling. We also held training sessions ****on how to hold collective mourning rituals and also how to address rupture in relationships.
During this time, I also have been advising religious leaders and institutions about how to develop programming about mourning for social change, Anti Semitism, Zionism, Palestinian freedom and collective liberation for their communities. I have been most closely involved with Seattle communities and leaders at Kadima Reconstructionist Community, Kavana Cooperative, Congregation Beth Shalom, the Unitarian Universalist Church in Seattle, NW Interfaith as well as a group of activists and faith leaders in Seattle organizing for the ceasefire. I have also attended many Jewish and interfaith vigils and demonstrations in Seattle where activists are tirelessly organizing.
On a daily basis I have also been providing one-on-one support to loved ones on the ground in Palestine and Israel who are most directly impacted. They are steadfast. They want to know if we are too. I’m relieved that I have been able to tell them that people are not going about things as normal in the rest of the world and that many people are dedicating their time and resources to ending this horror and creating a just and lasting peace.
While activist discourse in the diaspora seeks to center Palestinian and Israeli voices, many of my friends have shared how they cannot publicly, and in many cases even privately, call for peace, justice and equality as it is a risk to their lives. They have asked me to share their stories from our years of work together, here with you and the world. In response, I published an op-ed with Mondoweiss about my years of experience watching Israel target human rights advocates.
I also launched a fundraiser for an organization in Gaza that I used to work with, Youth Without Borders, to support displaced youth and their families and a fundraiser for Ronnie Gross, my dear friend and Israeli writer, grief worker and translator, to complete the translation of “The Wild Edge of Sorrow” by Francis Weller into Hebrew. If someone is interested in working on supporting getting this life changing book translated into Arabic also, please let us know.
What’s Next 🌬️
Many people have expressed a desire to build the Social Change Sanctuary together -- a multiracial, multi-faith, interspiritual, intergenerational community to nurture the communal resilience needed for collective liberation and a global human rights movement.
People keep asking me, can they support the work? YES you can. Here are some of the ways.
Join Us
Participate in our collective mourning groups online, in one of our upcoming workshops.
Come to our first in person gathering in the East Bay - Wednesday, January 24th at 7pm. You can sign up for the event here.
Connect
Join our Founder’s Circle and help shape the future of the Social Change Sanctuary. Please book a time if you want to explore collaboration.
Introduce us to potential ****participants, partners and donors.
Follow my personal substack where I’ll be sharing more of my writing and musings
Donate
The Social Change Sanctuary will eventually become a non-profit and will be resourced through a combination of courses, membership revenue and institutional support.
We're so excited to already have had some of your support and our first five donors who have committed to support our start up on an ongoing basis for the next six months.
Please consider donating $25, $250, $500, or $2,500 to sustain the emergence of this work in the coming months.
Financial contributions will enable me and the teams that are coming together to do this work, which needs to be offered free as much as possible.
We will be a fiscally sponsored project of Gabi Jubran and Mark Farrell’s organization, HAPPI, so you can make a tax deductible donation.
Giving Thanks 🙏
I want to again thank everyone who has supported me in these past two months, including the co-hosts and participants in mourning groups, especially Gabi Jubran, Hadar Cohen, Morgan Bach, Ronnie Gross, Ore Ganin-Pinto and Mark Farrell. I also want to thank several advisors who have supported me in this time, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Reverand Sara Jolena Wolcott, Patricia Anne Davis, Rabbi Diane Elliot, Vanessa Reid, Samar Zidani Baidoun, Marianna Pinchot, Andrew Murray Dunn, Bec Gavagin, Vincent Calvetti, Caitlin Healey, Natan Nicolas Bell, Yuli Aloni Primor and Angeline Thomas. Last but not least, I want to thank my mother, Tova Ramer, and father, Jon Ramer, as well as my step-parents Martin Roth and Sommer Joy Ramer for their love and support.
Keep heart, take a breath, and let's turn our tears into a sea of social change.