Through stories at once poetic and poignant, There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart offers a powerful elixir for all who rebel against systemic violence and injustice. The contemporary renewal of Jewish anarchism draws on a history of suffering, ranging from enslavement and displacement to white nationalism and genocide. Yet it also pulls from ancestral resistance, strength, imagination, and humor—all qualities, and wisdom, sorely needed today. These essays, many written from feminist and queer perspectives, journey into ancestral and contemporary trauma in ways that are humanizing and healing. They build bridges from bittersweet grief to rebellion and joy. Through concrete illustrations of how Jewish anarchists imaginatively create their own ritual, cultural, and political practices, they clearly illuminate the path toward mending ourselves and the world.

Prologue

Cindy Milstein

Part I: The Art of Remembrance

Screaming — Ami Weintraub

Dialectics of Mourning, Dialectics of Bricks — Magpie

[Title to come] — Josie Shapiro

And You Shall Love — Alice Ross

Reunion — Ali Nissenbaum

Justice — Matylda Tzvia Jonas

I Am Not Finished Grieving, and Now I Will Never Be — Diana Clarke

To My Beloved Jews and Dissidents — Stefanie Brendler

Of Performing Mitzvahs and Toppling Kings — S.G.

If I Wasn’t Taught to Remember, I Might Be Just Another Citizen — [pseudonym]

There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart — Cindy Milstein

Part II: The Art of Rebellion [Resilience?]

The Milk Pot — Xava Juarez

Ker A Velt — Eliui Damm

Part III: The Art of Repair

Washing the Dead in Pittsburgh — Jordana Rosenfeld

Breaking Bread and Breaking Free — Elias Lowe

Ritual Technology for a Liberated Future — Jay Tzvia Helfand

Last of Elul — Mikveh Warshaw

On Making and Holding Space — Michael Loadenthal

A Klezmer Playlist for an All-Out Revolt against Fascism — Aaron Lakoff

A Fiddlerose, a Wind, a Strand of Foam, a Drop of Wine: Using Jewish Cultural Material in Our Movements — rosza daniel lang/levitsky

Fighting Fascists with Folk. Art — Jay Saper

We Are the Golems They Fear: On Queerness, Anarchist Struggle, and Jewish Mythology — Zelda Gazelle

Rebellious Anarchist Young Jews — RAYJ Collective

Trans Rabbis — Noam Lerman

Jewish Anarchist Drag — Abbie Goldberg

Queer Purim Spiel — Gillian Goldberg and Ben Case

Radio613 — Madeleine Nerenberg and Avi Grenadier

Radical Jewish Calendar