Navigating Antisemitism: Supporting Jewish Mental Health, Belonging, and Communal Resilience

Thursday, November 5, 12:00 pm ET / 9:00 am PT / 7:00 pm Israel

Presenters: 
Tara E. Liberman, PsyD – JCMHI Founder and Executive Director
Sasha Soykin, PhD – JCMHI Director of Operations

The Jewish Community Mental Health Initiative (JCHMI) has spent the past few years working directly with Jewish communities navigating rising antisemitism. That work includes more than 2,500 clinician-led support group sessions worldwide, along with new research into the psychological toll of this moment.

This session draws on that work to examine how antisemitism and identity-based hate are affecting people's mental health, and what rabbis in particular are up against as they support their congregations through it. It offers concrete language, frameworks, and strategies for recognizing what they're seeing in their communities psychologically, responding to it, navigating the divides that surface in a room, and helping people sustain communal hope and belonging in the face of adversity.

The session will also address the well-being of rabbis themselves, who are often the first people communities turn to. Rabbis support congregations experiencing this moment in very different ways, with different fears, politics, and degrees of grief, while being expected to make sense of it all and hold their communities together. Following the session, participants will be invited to join an RA cohort facilitated by JCHMI.