Unlearning Jewish Anxiety: How to Live with More Joy and Less Suffering

Confronting the reality, habits, and healing of Jewish anxiety.

Jewish anxiety is not all in our heads. Nor is feeling anxious simply a Jewish stereotype, even though many Jews tout anxiety as a stereotypical virtue and ascribe it as a motivator for success. Jewish anxiety is real. We inherit it from our ancestors. We learn it simply by living in an unsafe world as Jewish people. We learn it growing up in Jewish communities. We unconsciously transmit Jewish anxiety to our children through how we remember the past, retell our stories, and celebrate Jewish holidays. We experience Jewish anxiety in how we habitually react to stress, fear, and uncertainty, whether that stress has anything to do with being Jewish. We receive painful messages from the wider world that we internalize as repetitive stress habits of fear, unworthiness, and shame, and then turn these hateful messages on ourselves and each other through the voices of unrelenting internal critics.

Jewish anxiety is real, but it is not inevitable. We don't have to suffer simply because of the challenging history or learned patterns we've inherited. We don't have to suffer simply because of who we are in the world, or how the world imagines, distorts, and treats Jews. I believe we have more choices about how to respond to life's challenges than we think. I believe we can unlearn these habits with awareness, curiosity, compassion, and courage. I believe Jewish spirituality offers deep wisdom and simple practices for how to release these patterns from our minds and our bodies for good. We can learn how to calm down, suffer less, and get free. I believe we can choose to live with more joy, despite the conspiracy theories and hatred.

Caryn Aviv is the rabbinic and program director at Judaism Your Way in Denver, CO. She's a rabbi, recovering academic in sociology and Jewish studies, and (mostly) formerly anxious Jew. She creates spaces, stories, rituals, and practices that offer safety, healing, equity, compassion and justice for Jews and their loved ones and allies. As a professor and rabbi she's taught Jewish history and culture for two decades, and she now teaches the material in this book in workshops, at conferences, with congregations, and online in partnership with national Jewish organizations all over the US. She lives in Denver, CO.