Mitsui Collective completed this research in 2024. Read their insightful findings on how Jews of Color experience the intersecting oppressions of racism and antisemitism in the body: Learn More.
Mitsui Collective is undertaking a community-engaged research project that brings together somatic healing frameworks, antiracist and counter-oppressive praxis, and Jewish cultural and spiritual wisdom to enable greater individual and collective liberation in and beyond Jewish communal life. Conducted as community-engaged research — in which research is conducted by and for the communities most impacted — this project is examining the intersectional impacts of racism and antisemitism on the Jewish community, with a focus on experiences of Jews of Color. Though many Jewish communities are aware of these oppressive systems, we rarely explore their physical impacts on people such as how they cause or exacerbate physical symptoms of anxiety, nausea, chronic pain, other symptoms associated with traumatic experience, and associated emotional symptoms such as anger or detachment. By using a somatic approach–one that engages the mind-body connection–the Jewish Somatic Antiracism Collaborative seeks to document the physical experiences that emerge in the context of racism and antisemitism and how that may impact community engagement. Their study aims to develop a somatic toolkit, which they describe as “ways of settling the nervous system,” drawing on embodied Jewish practices such as movement, music, breathing practices, and ritual, as well as somatic tools JoC inherit from additional cultural affinity spaces.
The research project hopes to grow understanding across the Jewish community to help JoC maintain connectedness to their Jewishness, navigate and heal from traumatic experiences, and educate white Jews on how to change culture individually, organizationally, and communally.