Get the Book & Stay Engaged
Taking the State Out of the Body is an interactive guide that moves between frameworks of collective liberation alongside trauma informed embodiment theory and practice. Readers from all backgrounds are invited 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. At a time where fascism and colonial imperialism in the U.S. and Palestine are rearing their heads and right wing authoritarianism is on the rise globally, this book will equip you with the tools you need to move from rugged individualist models of self-preservation to liberatory frameworks of collective care and joint struggle.
See below to buy the book, meet me on tour, and more ways to get engaged!
Tour Dates.
March 6
Book Talk
Red Emma’s
Baltimore, MD
Registration Coming Soon…
March 9
Book Talk
Bluestockings Cooperative Bookstore
New York, NY
Registration Coming Soon…
March 7
Book Talk
TBA
Philadelphia, PA
Registration Coming Soon…
March 11
Book Talk with Jules Pashall
Pushcart Judaica
Northampton, MA
Registration Coming Soon…
March 13
Workshop
TBA
Brattleboro, VT
Registration Coming Soon…
“I can think of no book more timely than this one. We are daily witness to how the Zionist narrative of Jewish safety requires uncritical support of a state enacting genocidal cruelty and violence targeting our Palestinian neighbors. Eliana Rubin offers us another way to construct a safety that comes with embodied solidarity - with our bodies, each other, our communities, and with Palestine."
- Tema Okun, author of White Supremacy Culture: Still Here and organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace
“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 co-regulation 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
“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, author of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
“An important and on time contribution to the somatic field. In Taking the State Out of the Body, Eliana 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, and author of What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World
“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 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)
✺ How to Engage ✺
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Everything is better together! Grab a few friends and start a book club. This book is set up well for collective reading and prompts for discussion.
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Are you hosting a conference? Would you like to incorporate embodied practice? Learn some of the frameworks around Jewish anti-Zionism. Connect body politics with your organizing. Bring Eliana out to talk to your community.
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Are you a teacher or facilitator? Do you want to teach about the nervous system from a politicized, queer, and trauma informed perspective? Are you looking for ways to teach your students about Jewish history and culture inside of a framework of collective liberation? Check out the book and use the sections at the end to inspire discussion and assignments.
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Does your organization need support aligning your behaviors, relationships, and internal dynamics with your political commitments? Eliana offers embodied facilitation for movement organizations to support culture change.
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Are you interested in a one off workshop or training on embodied practice? Anti-Zionism? Queer embodiment theory? We support people to develop their leadership and deepen their capacity to show up for movements for justice.
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Are you looking for writing that illustrates the intersections of embodiment and healing with political organizing and movement building? You can commission Eliana to write an article for your blog, journal, or any other fitting writing project!