In a profound conversation on the Superhumanizer podcast, Arab Jewish scholar and mystic Hadar Cohen explores how separation manifests beyond physical barriers, offering a spiritual framework for healing the deep wounds of division between Palestinians and Israelis.
"The body and the land are not separate," Cohen explains early in the interview. "My relationship to the land is through the relationship of my body, and my body carries what happens on the land." This embodied connection to place is fundamental to her understanding of both trauma and healing.
Born in Jerusalem as a 10th generation Jerusalemite, Cohen describes how colonization ruptures this vital connection: "Part of what colonization has done is rupture that link both personally and collectively." This rupture creates fragmentation in the psyche when people lose access to their lineages and don't know where they come from.
For Cohen, this understanding isn't abstract—it's visceral. She describes physical reactions to events in Jerusalem even when she's far away: "Sometimes I'm not even reading the news, but all of a sudden I'll throw up, and then I'll read the news and I'll be like, 'oh.'"
While much attention focuses on Israel's separation barrier—the 360-kilometer wall running the length of the West Bank that human rights organizations have dubbed the "apartheid wall"—Cohen introduces a more subtle concept: relational apartheid.
"Apartheid is a physical reality that segregates Palestinians and dehumanizes them," she explains. "And it's also a relational reality in which people are separated from one another mentally, spiritually, emotionally. We don't know each other's stories. We're not allowed to ask."
This relational separation is illustrated through her grandmother's story of childhood friendship with a Palestinian Muslim girl. When political tensions rose, the Palestinian girl's mother told her, "You actually can't come here anymore." Cohen reflects, "Just as a child being like, 'Oh, I can't actually be friends with this person anymore.' Which is something that does live in my bones."
In response to these ruptures, Cohen founded Malchut, a spiritual skill-building school teaching Jewish mysticism. Named after her grandmother Malka (meaning "queen" in Hebrew) and the Kabbalistic concept of divine feminine energy, Malchut emerged from Cohen's search for answers to human pain.
"I was an activist for a long time in different struggles," she shares. "And I kept confronting this thing that I didn't have answers to, which was: What to do with human pain?" She found those answers in spirituality, creating a school focused not on content but on "cultivating ways of being."
For Cohen, this spiritual work is inseparable from justice. She describes Zionism as "idolatry" that makes "a mockery of my religion," contrasting it with her Jewish lineage that teaches "love of humanity in the deepest way possible, which absolutely includes Palestinians."
Perhaps most powerfully, Cohen challenges the notion that healing can happen in isolation. "I just don't believe Jews can heal alone," she states. "We're too traumatized. We're too bound up in this intensity of being warped through Zionism."
This perspective is supported by research on intergenerational trauma, which shows how trauma is passed down through generations and lives on in the bodies of descendants. Studies have examined how both Israeli Jews and Palestinians carry legacies of trauma that make them vulnerable to reactive violence.
Cohen's response is radical relationship-building: "I'm at this point where I actually don't even feel comfortable doing Shabbat or doing high holidays without having Palestinians present because our histories and futures are so bound up together."
This approach differs from superficial "coexistence" movements. Cohen distinguishes between depoliticized relationships that ignore power dynamics and genuine connections that acknowledge political realities. "I do not participate in things that are just about people building peace outside of that political landscape because it does feel harmful," she explains.
Instead, she creates spaces for "Jewish Palestinian belonging"—community gatherings that weave together prayer, celebration, and relational exercises. These spaces embody her vision of healing: reconnecting body to land, self to lineage, and people to each other across manufactured divides.
In a world increasingly defined by walls both physical and relational, Cohen's message is clear: true healing comes not through separation but through courageous connection that honors both difference and shared humanity.
References:
PubMed (2017, May 18). "A community-based qualitative study of intergenerational resilience with Palestinian refugee families facing structural violence and historical trauma."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28517968/
ActionAid USA (2021, June 4) . "Breaking the cycle of trauma: How my Judaism has taught me to support Palestine."
Boston University (2024, January 10) . "POV: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Psychology of Trauma."
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-and-the-psychology-of-trauma/
IMEU (2024, July 3) . "Explainer: Israel's West Bank Wall."
https://imeu.org/article/israels-west-bank-wall
ReliefWeb (2002, November 13) . "Israel's Apartheid Wall: we are here and they are there."
https://reliefweb.int/report/israel/israels-apartheid-wall-we-are-here-and-they-are-there
Amnesty International (2022, February 1) . "Israel's apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity."
Human Rights Watch (2021, April 27) . "A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution."
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