Loving Our Own Bones: A Conversation with Rabbi Julia Watts Belser

In celebration of the 15th anniversary of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM), Rabbi Julia Watts Belser joined us in conversation about her new book Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole. In Loving Our Own Bones, which is the 2024 JDAIM Book Club Selection, Julia brings Jewish sacred texts into relationship with disability culture to deepen conversations about disability, spirituality, and social justice. We explored the intersections of access, ableism, and antisemitism in biblical texts and contemporary culture, learned how Shabbat practice can offer us spiritual tools for centering disability wisdom, and considered disability as a generative force that calls us to confront structures of exclusion and recommit to the work of building a more welcoming world.