I have always admired the efforts of the Onega Institute and I have followed Van der Kolk’s writings for many years so you can imagine my shock and dismay when I read what follows below
https://www.jta.org/2025/08/19/united-states/renowned-trauma-expert-bessel-van-der-kolk-banned-from-teaching-at-omega-institute-over-antisemitic-comments
Once you have read it. I want you to sit with the story for at least 10 minutes before reacting and examine your emotions and where you go with it. Some of you who do not know van der Kolk’s work may wish to go back and read it. He is all over You Tube.
This brings me to the heart of the deeply disturbing and confusing controversy surrounding the Israeli Hamas war that has put ordinary human beings on both sides in dire straits.
Meanwhile world opinion has been Escalating through social media like California’s wildfires burning every possible of a historically factual and reliable reportage before it as things get debated by agitprop, runaway emotions and the irrational killing escalates on both sides. It is WAR, but an entirely different concept that resemble the reality of a Hitler, only this time it is triggering old prejudices and igniting old, tried and true discriminations.
As a Jew in the lotus who has taken refuge in Tibetan Buddhism— of long standing I have struggled with the varied parts of myself; female, born Jew, lesbian feminist, ostensibly “white” if I don’t count the Asian Pacific 10% with the Austrian/Romanian/ Russian 90%—and that’s only the DNA.
I mention all these contradictions in passing to mirror our divertsity as one thing, humans. That word is also loaded with contradictions. My point being let’s look before we leap. Our major and central concern should be human lives—All human lives.
My struggle has been and is to understand the imbalances in everything surrounding the current catastrophe in the Middle East. It’s is like a spectacular deadly game of chess being played by actors who are barely discussed as as they pull the strings driving this on going daily obscenity.
After much anguish over the lost of lives, rapes and dusmemberment’s of Israeli women, killing of babies, torture of hostages and combatants, and systematic sieges of Gaza resulting in displacement. I am appalled by the ongoing lack of Justice for ordinary civilians caught in the crossfires of these clashing ideologies— of the will to power for fun and profit on of the patriarchal puppet masters pulling the blood and soil strings.
I am squarely with J Street, the Arab and Israeli peacemakers, families of Hostages and in favor of an immediate ceasefire, return of hostages, and putting in place a nonpartisan peacekeeping force.
The rogue orthodox West Bank fanatics who have murdered and occupied Arab land there must be held accountable under the law and punished for their crimes, as must the Hamas and other terrorists on a case by case basis. The settlers must be relocated and Israel must pay for the cost and resettlement.
That is the beginnings of responsibility. The fact is we cannot go back to Europe’s antisemitism that led to the decision to send people back to a “homeland” that was/is an historical and biblical context.
We must begin to redress things by starting from where they are. The Iranian murderous Mullahs and others who have trained, financed and fanned age old hatreds for their own ends as well as the terrorist leaders. Bibi and company as well as our leadership must be made to stand before a world court to assess their parts and penalties in fueling the conflict.
Of course, the fantasy of those of us who deplore war and know it settles only the outward manifestation of bloody hell are aware we do not have the power to wave a magic wand or command Glenda the good witch of the west to wave her magic wand and make it all happen.
So not to digress and back to van der Kolk’s disturbing, triggering words. As writers we know the power of them. My points, if you care to stand back, are that we need to think very carefully about how we weaponize words.
Van der Kolk is just one terrible and truly tragic example where an essentially “healing person” thoughtlessly chose words that were like Nazi bullets and then was surprised out of being at the reactions of traumatized Jews and other people of conscience reactions to him.
I am no specialist or psychiatrist, psychologist, or trauma specialist but as a traumatized person who has spent years and a small fortune dealing with my symptoms from a systemic physical and mental rape by patriarchal heteronormativity's misogynistic society and culture I am only to well aware to miss the complexity of language. I too would have thought van der Kolk would have apologized right then and there. Apparently, he did not and for whatever reasons just made it worse.
I lament that these issues, war and sensitivity to people victimized by hatred’s always get played out in mass mainstream media and in the social media feeds in the simplistic and polarizing ways they do where the community of opinions are front and center driving people to jump on the various band wagons of opinion.
Back to the beginning. Rather than taking the peacemaking train to solutions that bind up what wounds we can and rebuild communities with decent housing and human services so people can finally have lives living peaceably and sharing these lands together the relentless human carnage grinds on.
As always, I welcome your solutions to what is described above as writers and creatives other than blame and shame and the bone yard where we will all eventually find ourselves.
