Part 1: Welcome to a special three-part series of Remember What's Next called Jewish History and Trauma. Ellie Bass and Rabbi Ken Spiro are in conversation with Professor Elan Javanfard who is a researcher and expert in Jewish intergenerational trauma. Together, we are going to trace the full arc: where our collective wounds come from, how they live in us today especially now and what healing might actually look like going forward.
This first episode in a special series examines how historical trauma shapes Jewish identity, focusing specifically on Ashkenazi Jews. The conversation establishes foundational concepts of trauma (capital T vs. lowercase t, individual vs. communal, intergenerational vs. multigenerational) and traces how 1,000 years of European persecution created distinctive psychological and behavioral patterns in Ashkenazi communities—including emotional restraint, hyper-achievement orientation, dark humor as coping mechanism, and somatization of distress.
Find out more about Professor Javanfard and his work: https://www.elanjavanfard.com/ and check out his blog: https://nefesh.org/blogs/Ejavanfard
Want the full story? Start from episode one.
As Winston Churchill said, "The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." That's exactly what we're doing — going all the way back, so we can understand the present and shape what comes next.
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Rabbi Ken Spiro → www.KenSpiro.com
Ellie Bass → www.elliebass.com
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