Leaving Wokeness Behind: Reclaiming Inclusion, Nuance, and True Solidarity
I am a second-generation Russian Jew. My family came to this country seeking safety and opportunity, and I was raised to assimilate, help others, and live Tikkun Olam—the Jewish value of repairing the world. That upbringing shaped everything I did as an activist.
For more than 20 years, I have worked with women who experienced violence. That is both an identity I carry and a community I have dedicated my life to supporting. Today, as an Associate Professor, I bring that experience into the classroom and to the next generation of social workers, ensuring trauma-informed care and inclusion are central to their practice.
I have shown up for immigrants, women who have experienced violence and people who were formerly incarcerated—and I was detained for standing with them.
Honoring the Communities That Shaped Me
I don’t regret any of that work. The communities I stood with—the immigrant community, survivors of violence, formerly incarcerated community, and others—taught me resilience, courage, and hope. They are not the ones who turned away from me. They never asked me to abandon my Jewishness to stand with them.
What disillusioned me was not those I protested for, but the so-called allies and feminists in activist and academic spaces—the colleagues and friends who claimed the mantle of justice while practicing exclusion. Over time, I realized these groups had radicalized. They cultivated a sense of belonging for those who were vulnerable, drawing people into echo chambers with performative identity and conditional solidarity. Criticism, nuance, or acknowledgment of Jewish suffering was treated as betrayal, rooted in the false narrative that Jews are white and that anyone who is white is automatically a colonizer. Compassion became selective, and solidarity was transactional—given to some and withheld from others depending on identity, politics, or perceived allegiance.
I was part of this group. I absorbed these ideas. I didn’t even include Jews in ADEI initiatives because, at the time, I didn’t think we belonged. I see now that I was part of the problem. The result was a movement that appeared inclusive but, in reality, reinforced hierarchies, punished dissent, and left many—including me—isolated and erased.
Some colleagues tried to rationalize their silence on Jewish suffering by comparing it to George Floyd’s murder, saying, “This isn’t the same. There’s only one side to George Floyd, but there are two sides to this.” That reasoning erased trauma, erased Jew hate, dismissed Jewish women’s experiences, and denied the brutality that occurred.
The Silence After October 7th
When Jewish women were raped and murdered, when families were brutalized, and when communities were traumatized, my so-called fellow activists fell silent—or worse, turned against me. I asked, What about rape being used as a weapon of war? No one would respond. I asked, What about BLM celebrating Hamas paragliders in memes of glee? A colleague brushed it off, saying, “Oh, that was just in Chicago.”
They moved on—as if Jewish bodies didn’t matter, as if Jewish lives were expendable. Memory matters.I will always remember who turned away, but I choose to be guided by the resilience of those who refused to be broken.
Losing Community for Speaking the Truth
When I dared to say Jewish lives matter too, the backlash came swiftly. Board members distanced themselves from Trauma Informed Learning Alliance because we featured Jewish, Arab, and Christian voices in Our Stories Matter Podcast. They dismissed our bridge-building as “Zionistic.”
We had even interviewed a former neo-Nazi and a former jihadist—both of whom had turned from hate to healing, both now identifying as Zionists. Still, colleagues and friends walked away.
What I Learned
Wokeness demanded that I show up for everyone else. And I did—because I was taught it was my responsibility as a Jew: to assimilate, to repair the world, to help others.
But when it came time for those in my activist and academic circles to stand with me, as a Jew, as a woman who experienced violence, as someone grieving October 7th—they did not.
And that’s when I understood: solidarity that excludes Jews isn’t solidarity at all. Justice that abandons Jewish women isn’t justice. Trauma-informed spaces that deny Jewish trauma are not trauma-informed.
Awake, Not Woke
I walked away from wokeness because it was never mutual. It was conditional, transactional, and ultimately, dehumanizing.
I still believe in Tikkun Olam. I still believe in justice, inclusion and the power of storytelling to bring people together. But I no longer believe in a movement that erases Jewish pain while demanding my constant presence for everyone else’s.
They never stood with me. I stood with them. Memory matters. And I choose connection over despair—with those who stand for truth, justice, and solidarity. These are my new brothers and sisters.
