Journey to Poland: Jewish Ancestral Healing for Collective Liberation

There is a way to remember and grieve past traumas that doesn't harden us into perpetrators, but instead softens us into embracing a Judaism of Never Again for Anyone.

***Help us innovate the spiritual and cultural technologies to transform a story of perpetual victimhood into a story of strength and solidarity – in service of collective healing, peace and justice.***

This summer, 18 Ashkenazi Jews will embark on a transformational healing pilgrimage to Poland. Our aim is to reclaim and reinvigorate Diasporic Judaism by restoring and healing the connection with the Jewish lands, ancestors, culture, history and traditions of Eastern Europe.

Amidst the weaponization of Jewish trauma and an ongoing genocide in Gaza, this journey emphasizes truly facing the massive grief and pain – and celebrating the immense beauty – our people experienced in those lands.

Through witness, ceremony, song, study, prayer, and direct land and ancestor connection, we will metabolize grief through a ritual practice of being with and memorializing historical trauma that liberates us to more deeply embrace and GROW a Judaism rooted in collective liberation.

🌳 We will discover what’s been lost, forgotten, destroyed, or purposely left behind – filling in gaps in our personal and collective identities, souls, and sense of belonging.

🌳 We will deepen our connection to Ashkenazi culture, re-awakening forgotten ceremonies, medicinal remedies, songs, and stories, and walking the earth and forests of our ancestors.

🌳 We will examine how violence in Israel-Palestine cannot be disentangled from the rise of Zionism in Eastern Europe, while lifting up the legacy of the socialist Bund in our efforts to end injustice and dismantle systems of oppression everywhere.

🌳 Through understanding our positioning as white-racialized Jews and actively journeying toward de-assimilation, we will create a stronger foundation and deeper capacity for true solidarity in our fights for justice.

🌳 And with a grounding in the past, we will dream into new futures, sharing our stories, and planting and watering seeds for a Judaism beyond Zionism and nationalism.

Our Ask:

***Please make a contribution at a level that feels generous and do-able for you.***

If you are inspired to support this work at a higher level, or you know someone who can, we are gathering a circle of 5-10 donors who can contribute between $1000 and $5000 each.

Please be in touch with juliewolk@gmail.com if this is you (and/or if you'd like to pay through another method).

We are a small and scrappy start-up, so your contribution is very meaningful and high leverage.

Our total fundraising goal for the year is $40,000 – a relatively small amount of money to raise for a big impact. We current do not receive ANY formal institutional funding because of our strong political stance, so we rely on individual donors.

(PS: We are open to this becoming “Birthright Poland,” but at this point, we are keeping it simple and staying nimble.)

We have an opportunity to do the grieving and healing that generations before us weren't equipped to do – for understandable reasons.

Help us do this work now on their behalf and on behalf of future generations.

Help us create a new narrative of Jewishness by exploring the beauty, strength, and solidarity of our ancestors that has been obscured.

And help us transform Judaism into one in which Never Again always means Never Again for Anyone.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GIFT!

Learn more at https://ashkenaziancestraljourneys.org/

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“...To acknowledge the devastating nature of the wounds, and then to direct the rage of the traumatized… into an assertion of humanity, into the deliberate decision that the cycle stops with us.” Aurora Levins Morales, Poet, historian, and social change activist and elder

“We must emancipate the Jewish people from fear.” Fadi Quran, director of Avaaz

“When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a
sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Laureate

Ashkenazi Ancestral Journeys is a fiscally sponsored organization of Fiscal Sponsorship Allies. By donating, you agree to the Fiscal Sponsorship Allies Donor Terms & Conditions.