#129 Embodying Anti-Zionism: Wendy Elisheva Somerson
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Michael Reiley: [00:00:00] Okay, I am here [00:01:00] with Wendy Elisheva Somerson, AKA Wes, thanks for being here on The SAND Podcast with us.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Michael Reiley: Yeah, so you have this new important book that's really resonates with a lot of the themes we've been exploring, especially over the past year with 'Where Olive Trees Weep' and our coverage of intergenerational trauma and how that ties into collective healing called An anti-Zionist path to embodied Jewish healing.
So thank you for this book and thank you for being here today. And your book opens with the chapter title in the midst of genocide. And so why was it important for you to start there and what do you want Jewish readers to confront about this moment of this ongoing genocide in Palestine?
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Yeah. One thing to know is that I, I wrote the whole book prior to October 7th, and then, I was editing it after that, but I, it felt like it was really [00:02:00] important to, include the, beginning of the genocide and what has happened since. And so I went back and wrote that chapter to give the book a little more context.
And as and I'm sure all your listeners know, it's just been a really immense escalation of violence against Palestinians in this ongoing naba. And almost every person I know has been just grappling with how do we. How do we stop this? How do we witness it? How do we do everything we can to make it end?
And it's this kind of trauma that we're witnessing that's going to last for generations and generations. And that was true before October 7th, obviously. Like it was true at the start of, since 1948, at least the start of the Naba and the dispossession of Palestinians from their land and their homes.
But the past year, the atrocities have just been horrendous. [00:03:00] Over 50,000 Palestinians killed over a hundred thouSAND injured, and it's the scale that's really even hard to fathom. And so I think as Jews, we really have to confront like what is being done in our names? What do we know as a people whose many of whose ancestors survived a genocide?
Really feeling in our bones that never again means that we fight for never again to happen to anyone, and that we have to stop it. And all of us have to confront this moment, right as Jews, as US citizens because our government. Is paying for it and as world citizens, because it's just atrocious. It's, we have to remember our humanity and we all have to confront it. So I, it's one of the most horrendous. It's the most horrendous thing I've lived through and had to witness. And I think we are all there. It's not even like we should confront it. I think [00:04:00] we are all confronting it and we will, and we will continue to confront it.
Michael Reiley: In your book you write about Zionism and the manipulation of Jewish historical trauma, which you mentioned related to the Holocaust. So how do you help people untangle their own personal grief from this political ideology of Zionism?
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: I think we have to keep separating out the past from the present and to put the Nazi Holocaust and this history of really violent antisemitism into its place in history and really recognize who is and isn't responsible for that violence, right? Europeans, were the ones responsible for the Nazi Holocaust, not Palestinians, and so I'm really trying to help people. Remember that. Understand that and understand how their grief is being manipulated [00:05:00] to create the same kinds of horrors that our ancestors survive. And I know for me, when I fell into my own grief about the impact of antisemite antisemitic persecution and the Nazi holocaust and my family history and my family tree I know that I heal by really working to support the people who are being most targeted by state violence now.
And that's what never again means to me. So it means working to end this genocide and support Palestinians and. I think it's just, some of it is just really being able to separate out that what happened to us was never about right. The Palestinians, it was about Europeans and that the colonization of PA of Palestine came from many forces, including antisemitism, right?
Colonialism, nationalism. But it was it was a response that. Didn't really make sense [00:06:00] because it wasn't targeted. It wasn't something that was directly addressing the harm that was caused to us.
Michael Reiley: Can you talk a little bit more about this embodied Jewish healing this particular type of healing that you're advocating and talking about in the book and that I think, what you do, obviously in your work as well with embodied Jewish healing.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Yeah, totally. The idea is just as we hold trauma in our bodies and we really can't heal from that through our intellect alone, which is sometimes some forms of tradition. Additional therapy are like mind down and we're more of a body up. And so we're working at the level of the body and we're using body-based practices like setting boundaries bodily awareness.
And and body work. And with body work, we're actually really making contact with the contractions in our body that hold our histories, our muscles, our tissues, our bones hold our [00:07:00] histories. And what we wanna do is find the places where we're tight and where we're contracted, and allow those contractions to release so that we can make room for new stories and new ways of being to emerge.
And so we really inherited this concept and way of being in the west of Disembodiment from colonialism, which really positive that those people who were closely connected to the land and their bodies were somehow less European, right? They were less human because they weren't intellect based. And they hadn't yet learned to exploit the land and exploit each other, right?
And so it's this history of disembodiment that we really wanna work against, and we're living inside of white supremacist capitalist culture, which really encourages and needs us to be numb, dissociated, disembodied. And Overreliant on our intellect because [00:08:00] capitalism really requires this objectification of others and disconnection from the land and our living environment.
And so what we really want, both individually but also collectively, is to be able to feel ourselves right, to feel our bodies, to feel our connection to the land, to feel our connection to each other, which goes back to what you were just saying, right? That's how we feel Empathy. We're all connected, and when we can feel ourselves, we feel that empathy and the opposite is disconnection and allowing some people to be treated as less than human and allowing the earth to be treated in an objectifying, extractive way.
And so we're all kind of living in this, like this is where we've ended up based on this history. And so it's both, I think we both hold the trauma in our individual bodies, our collective bodies, our earth body, right? And so what we really need to do and [00:09:00] embody Jewish healing is come back into ourselves to find different ways of relating to our histories and our stories that kind of are.
Guiding us towards connection instead of separation.
Michael Reiley: Obviously the idea of non-duality that SAND has in its title that lack of separation and it also, it just occurs to me when you're speaking about how in my lifetime I've seen just an escalation of. Disembodiment through technology. These devices that people are spending 8, 12 hours a day on are completely disembodied.
And this is becoming our portal of knowing, our portal of disinformation, our portal of separation
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: what you're saying is very relevant to this moment because it's like both the technology enable people to see for themselves what was happening in Gaza. Like we've been horrifically watching a genocide, being livestream, but that, it's horrific and. A lot of people woke up because they could actually see [00:10:00] what was happening.
It didn't feel so far away. And so there's that kind of double-edged sword where we all know that being on our phones all the time and just, being a passive witness isn't, the direction we wanna go. And there's something about the technology that I think did enable, there's most.
People in the world, the vast majority of people in the world know the genocide needs to end because we've actually witnessed it on, on our phones. We've been able to see it in a way that in the past we haven't been able to.
Michael Reiley: Yeah, that's a good point too. So this. The title of your book in anti-Zionism. Could you talk more about that? And it sounds and it is from reading your book, it more of just a political stance, but it's actually a path to radical self-healing. So could you talk about that as a methodology for healing individually and collectively anti-Zionism?
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Yeah, absolutely. I think it really means showing up in solidarity with [00:11:00] others, and for Jewish people it means refusing Jewish exceptionalism. As this approach to our history and our suffering, and the Nazi genocide, that kind of exceptionalize and individualizes and places the Nazi genocide. In its own category and as though it's not a part of history and not connected to other oppressions, and then what the state of Israel has done, it separates us. It tells us that we to be safe and to be in our dignity. We can't be connected to others, right? We have to have militarized borders. We need to oppress others and keep them out.
We need to have an apartheid system. And anti-Zionism is really saying the opposite. It's a healing path in some ways because it's saying we are. It comes back to connection, right? We are just as connected to Palestinians as to each other, even though there's a huge power difference. Because we're humans.
Because we're humans. And so anti-Zionism is a healing path as saying you [00:12:00] have to care about other humans just as much as you care about yourselves and your community. So it really means making and creating connections beyond the boundaries of our identities and healing some of the wounds and some of the stories that, we are the most oppressed, that no one has ever stood up for us.
We're really redoing that story. That's why it's healing to be an anti-Zionist, because we are showing that. A, that's not true. And B, we can be in connection with others and be safe and b, in our dignity. And that this kind of, Zionism is obviously a huge trauma for Palestinians.
But I also talk in about, in the book that it's traumatic for Jews too because it's really created an apartheid system that. Claims to be speaking in our names, a violent nationalist state that claims to be speaking in our names. And this is harmful to our souls, right? That's not what we were taught about Jewish [00:13:00] values.
That's not every culture has regressive and progressive elements, and it's the worst parts, right? It's taking the worst parts of a culture and lifting them up, and there's so many. Different ways to be Jewish on parts of Judaism, but above all else is we uphold the sanctity of life.
Is that just that like above all else, it's the most important thing is to uphold life. To save life, to preserve life. And so anti-Zionism really comes back to, for Jews, like holding up. Holding up. We are all made in the image of God. It's right coming back to the best of our Jewish values and that is healing for us as Jews and we have to do this healing work to, the soul wound of Zionism is really harmful for us.
It's harmful for us to feel like something is being done in our names that we have no control over. So anti-Zionism as a healing [00:14:00] path is about really connection over separation and really challenging some of the traditional narratives of what Zionism means to Jewish people.
Michael Reiley: And one last question about the trauma and intergenerational trauma that it it seems as though, you've said, you said this earlier, that. Zionism is purposefully weaponizing the trauma of the Holocaust,
how do you work with that balance of letting go and releasing the trauma, but not bypassing the trauma?
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: I think we have to acknowledge and be in our bodies to know that we are both being activated, but also to be able to discern what is current danger and what is past danger. And the only way that we do that is that we have to integrate and allow some of the stuck survival responses that are in us to move through our bodies.
So it's like most people have heard of, like when we're under [00:15:00] threat or danger, we have survival responses that are built into us by. Flight, freeze a piece, right? And these get stuck in us when we weren't able to successfully protect ourselves protect our loved ones, right? And that's what trauma is all about.
But what we're trying to do so that we don't. Just bypass the trauma. We're trying to say, okay, this is in our bodies and what we need to do with it is feel it, move it, integrate it, and release it. And when we can do that, it helps us better differentiate between the past and the present. And when we can d make that differentiation, then we can notice, right that.
Jews aren't being made more safe right. By a genocide against another people that it doesn't make any sense. And when we get out of the historical trauma, we know that right? And most Jews know that, right? That is true. Most Jews want this genocide to, to end and have from the [00:16:00] beginning and know that is not making us any safer by pitting Jewish safety against another people's freedom, Palestinian freedom.
Michael Reiley: Nice. And when you write and talk about solidarity with Gaza and Palestinians this. It seems like it's more than just a political act, but also a spiritual and ethical responsibility. Can you talk about that expansion as it relates to Zionism, which from my understanding is very secular, even though it's somehow co-opted a religion, that it's the presentation of it and the manipulation of it is very secular.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Yeah, I think it goes back to maybe what I was talking about before, that when we allow, our identities to be used to cause harm to someone else. It causes really a soul wound, right? It causes a soul wound because we are all connected and when we disconnect, disassociate get numb [00:17:00] and allow that to happen, we become smaller inside of ourselves, less connected to the spirit, less connected to the world.
And so when we can show up in solidarity we reach beyond these kind of narrow constrictions that are not necessarily just individual, but that are collective, right? We are being told by the state of Israel, by nationalism, by Zionist institutions to get small and to allow our identities to be used to cause harm to others.
When we can show up in solidarity and reach across those boundaries and say, absolutely not right? I'm not gonna let my name, I'm not gonna let my identity be used to cause harm to someone else. That's a spiritual act, and it's healing for us is not the primary goal to heal us. The primary goal is to stop the genocide, but I do think of it as a spiritual act that is healing because we are doing something different.
We're not allowing our [00:18:00] trauma. To be manipulated. We're saying yes, we suffered trauma, and from that we are coming out with the goal of no one ever suffering this kind of trauma. We're coming out with the goal of reaching outside of ourselves to connect to other suffering, and that I think for me is what makes it also a spiritual act.
Michael Reiley: [00:19:00] [00:20:00] do you think having some sort of spiritual or sacred practice, something to ground [00:21:00] you, whether it's, animus earth practice or more of a traditional religion do you think that's important to keep that flame of activism alive and present to not burn out?
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Yeah, I really do. I really do. And I know it's different from everyone. But for me, yeah it's really important to have ritual, to have connection to others through ritual, to connect to energy, to connect to the earth. Those are ways that I resource myself and I really like in a time of deep despair.
And yeah, for me it, it is important to have some sense of connection to some things that are bigger than myself, and that includes, I find. That taking action is healing in and of itself because what we were just talking about. But I also feel like I need connection to the natural world.
I'm very blessed to live in a place where mountains and water are close by. I saw the orca whales just two weeks ago, [00:22:00] in my neighborhood, which is a little bit wild and, amazing. And those kind of experiences also are part of what nourishes me.
Michael Reiley: . And something we noticed at SAND, especially right around October 7th, was a deafening silence in spiritual communities and people just feeling and not just Jewish teachers, but people who felt like they wanted to be allies to the Jewish people. They felt stuck between the horror of.
The violence and the genocide, but also being seen as a traitor anti-Semitic. And so how do you help people navigate that tension as it's, still exists? I'm sure for many people not wanting to be seen as a traitor to the community of not, of ju of Judaism.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: It, in some ways I think it comes back to especially for Jewish people like acting in alignment with our Jewish values that are about protecting life and that we have [00:23:00] to hold those up. And that nationalism is not a holy value, right? Violence is not a holy value.
Oppressing other people is not a holy value. And it's hard. I'm not embedded in a community of Zionists. And I don't think it is easy, but I do think that we find community too, right? When we start speaking from our hearts and saying, this is not okay, I cannot support this.
Then because others are attracted to that message, we find new community. And I think that's one of the things about, the left and anti-Zionist Jewish communities we're despairing and we're having such a hard time, and it, what we really still need to do though is create really strong, loving community for each other that invites other people in, at any point in their lifetimes. That I think is our do. Our job as anti-Zionist Jews is to keep creating a culture that [00:24:00] invites other people in and that says to them, you might be losing some people in your community, but there's a community here to support you. There's a thriving anti-Zionist Jewish community that, has spirit, that has ritual, that there are religious.
Spaces like the synagogue in Chicago that are anti-Zionists and that there are all these places where you can find community. And I know it is like deeply hard and deeply painful for many people. I don't wanna downplay that. And I think also we have to look towards the future and know that we want the future generations to.
To be able to say my ancestors, my grandfather, my grandmother stood on the right side of history, right? That, that we cared more about remaining humans than, group think that we refuse to [00:25:00] dehumanize others. And I think it's, just like you were saying about the perspective of like when you see the orcas like and all of nature and it's like we have to really zoom out in perspective, I think to be like, yes, this might be very painful in this moment.
And how do we zoom out and even look generations back and generations forward to what are the bigger truths that we can ground ourselves in so that we can do something that is. Life affirming that does not rely on other people's suffering at all.
Michael Reiley: And as we look to the future in your vision, what would a post Zionist. Jewish relationship to the land of Israel and Palestine look like for you.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: I think it's that's a really tricky question because. I hope you know what I want in a post Zionist Israel Palestine is for all people to be free, for Palestinians to have the right to return to, no longer have, right? These [00:26:00] systems of apartheid and unequal rights and violence. And for those who you know, are currently Israeli to no longer be occupiers, to not be o occupying someone else's land, not having their very existence predicated on someone else's suffering. Beyond that, it's not my land. I'm not there. I don't, it is not really up for me to say what exactly should happen. I just know that I would like to visit a place right where Palestinians are free and have a right to live full and free lives on their land and where the people who have been Israelis are not occupiers.
Michael Reiley: When did this idea of activism and your faith come together? I.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: . I talk about this in the book, how I was not raised religiously Jewish and didn't have very much, if any, Jewish community. We were one of the few Jewish families in [00:27:00] a entirely, 99%. Waspy neighborhood and I had a longing inside of myself to connect with other Jews, but I had never really found my people.
And after I was in Seattle and I was in my, I think mid thirties I was invited to Shabbat dinners with a bunch of other queer Jews. And I was like, yes, I'm really excited. These might be my people. And our Shabbat dinners, we broke bread, we drank the wine, we did all the things to connect and celebrate Shabbat.
And we also I remember that the questions and the discussion was guided around how did you first learn about Zionism? And for me it was really interesting because I didn't really have a very Jewish upbringing, but I definitely still heard about Zionism and I definitely still heard things about the state of Israel.
I. And through these conversations, all of us decided, oh, we wanna learn [00:28:00] more. We wanna learn more about what is the history of Zionism. And so we formed a study group that looked at what is the history of Zionism, and we read Avila, we read works, Zionism and Palestine, and through that study group.
Then when there was a call from. Jewish Voice for Peace. It was just starting to create national chapters. That study group became our Seattle chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace about 20 years ago now. And so for me, my activism really relied on being invited into a community of others who I could talk and think through these ideas with.
And so once I learned a different history than I'd ever heard about the harms of Zionism, I was ready to take action. But I also needed to, for me, I just, because I was up until that point, so insecure in my Jewish identity, it felt like, what is it? Who am I? [00:29:00] It didn't feel rooted. It really helped to find others.
To grapple with and feel like, oh, I am part of this community. And for me, I became politicized. At the same time, I started to reclaim my Jewish identity. I, joined a synagogue. I did an adult. I was part of a adult bene mitzvah group, and so I wanted to do more Jewish learning, but I feel blessed in this way that my first real Jewish community was an anti-Zionist Jewish community.
And so I didn't have, there was struggle, but it wasn't necessarily the same struggle that many Jews have who are raised in very Zionist households of having to break with something that they learned. I did in like kind of some small ways that I think Zionism had seeped in, but I, it wasn't a huge rupture for me and it was a real blessing that my first Jewish community was politicized queer.
A place that I could really call home and. And Jewish [00:30:00] race or peace has been my home over these past 20 years, both culturally and politically.
Michael Reiley: And for listeners who may be new to the. Term or the concept of anti-Zionism how do they learn more or connect with this idea? Aside from reading your book, obviously.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: I think that there's, because of. This moment, this political moment that we're in, there's just like way more resources than there used to be. I think Jewish Voice for Peace is an incredible resource and has like a lot of 1 0 1 materials that you can find. I think talking to and finding other anti-Zionists, whether online or in the community you're a part of.
Yeah, I think that there's lots of people to read. Naomi Klein, Peter Byard. Like I said, there's just a lot more, it's easier to find information on anti-Zionism than it used to be, and way more books are being published right now. I think Jewish Currents is [00:31:00] a wonderful place to read and learn more.
I think the Jewish Currents Podcast on the nose is wonderful and the magazine's wonderful. And then starting to really read and listen to Palestinians nor Erica. Hana Ian is a wonderful Palestinian person who talks about healing and trauma and on the road to a free Palestine. And I think, nothing can supplant relationships.
And so really, talking with others breaking bread with others, but really having some of these art conversations through connection.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. And as you talked about earlier, to not just stay in the intellectual realm, but to enter the somatic practices that you offer. And yeah. Could you talk you've talked about in the beginning, but could you talk a little bit more about the somatic healing practices that you offer and how you yeah.
How you weave this with the anti-Zionism framework?
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: [00:32:00] Really the practices are a way that we can feel for and discover what we're holding in our bodies. And what are the histories we're holding in our bodies and that we can also feel for like right now. A lot of Jews are feeling shame in our bodies, right? Because this genocide is being done in our names.
And even though we know that's. It's not true, right? It's rhetoric, it's political cynicism and manipulation. It still lives in our bodies, right? And so I can't haw my way out of something like that. I really have to go in and figure out what is what, how is the shame living inside of me? And what are the ways that I can work with it to release some of it and to heal some of it?
And so there's lots of different body-based practices, but the general principle is that first we have to have body awareness, right? We have to be able to know and feel what is happening in our bodies. [00:33:00] We have to get connected to our bodies. Then we wanna be able to create practices that build new skills for us in our bodies.
So that we can set embodied boundaries so that we can move towards connection with others, right? And then we wanna do body work or some form of healing that allows some of the stuck places to release and integrate. And so there's lots of different practices. There's, there's many in my tradition that I come from, and then there's many other somatic practices.
But the kind of basis they all rest on is being able to feel ourselves, being able to connect with others and being able to move energy through our bodies.
Michael Reiley: Are these somatic practices offered in the form of a guided meditation, like more a subconscious practice or a conscious practice?
What is, let's say I'm reading the news and I'm getting upset, or I'm feeling like you said, shame and guilt around, the latest massacre that's happening. In, in Gaza. Yeah. Could you, would you mind giving [00:34:00] an example of how you would guide someone through that?
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Yeah, sure. I think that we're all. Attached to screens watching this happen. And I think we also need to remember, we have to step aside sometimes, right? And we have to take breaks. And it doesn't mean we're not witnessing, it doesn't mean we collectively aren't witnessing, but that witnessing is really a collective act.
So I think for all of us, I do really encourage breaks time outside and when we get activated, when we are in, from a new cycle, feeling the shame, feeling the grief that we actually drop down into our bodies and we feel, how is that living in me? And then how do I feel for resource myself with something else.
So I offer a centering practice that offers, like when we are activated, what is a way to come back to center and remember what it is we care about and feel that in our bodies so that we have a shift in perspective so that we have a different way [00:35:00] of being like, okay, how do I come back into myself and come out of the like hyped up, activated state?
I also think, I know I keep coming back to connection, but I think in our very disconnected world of screens, we really wanna find connection. So can I, if I'm. Just learning about something, really awful feeling. Some of the shame. Can I reach out to someone else who I know will understand and just talk about what it is I'm feeling and experiencing?
So it, in many ways I think it's the power of connection is it's so simple and it's also so somatic, right? Something shifts in us when we connect with someone else. And so finding those people who, when you're, you are feeling shame or finding out, out about the latest atrocity that you can reach out and connect to them and they can reach out and connect to you, and that you just go for a walk together.
And that really helps us reregulate our nervous systems. [00:36:00] And it's hard. I think it's challenging for everybody right now. We've been witnessing so many months and haven't been able to stop it and things are getting worse and, the ceasefire that was never really a ceasefire is broken.
So it's hard and it's challenging and it's hard to, I feel like we're all struggling with how do we combat numbness and despair in this time. And I don't have all the answers. I only know what I think works for me and other people who I work with, and we're all struggling.
Like I, I don't think humans are meant to witness anything like this. Like I think it's just that inhumanity is very hard to be with.
Michael Reiley: Do you have a story or an anecdote that we can try to end this on a, of a possibility of what the future could hold for this, anti-Zionist liberated future for people in Palestine
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: . I can think of a couple [00:37:00] of things. Just very recently, I just felt very inspired by the Jewish students at Columbia who chained themselves to a gate to protest the ice kidnapping of Palestinian American student Mahmood Kil. And it, just listening to the students on democracy now felt really inspired.
And I also, they spoke to a Palestinian American student, I think her name was Miriam, and she was saying how much it had meant to her this year to organize with Jewish students and all that she's learned. And just hearing about that relationship of respect and solidarity that has been happening these past, over these past almost two years now.
It was really helpful to me that those, it's like those tiny moments of solidarity are really inspiring and hopeful about the future. And then I was listening to, that podcast between the covers [00:38:00] and the host. David was interviewing Omar El Ahad, who is the author of One Day. Everyone Will Have Been Against This, which is I think it's one of the most important books of this time.
But the thing that moved me the most is that he talked about, in this immense horror that we're experiencing, that the power of love is on the side of the oppressed, and I really felt that. And he talked about, the love that inspires Palestinians to keep returning to their homes. And I've been thinking about the love that inspires Palestinian journalists to keep risking their lives, to tell stories and Palestinian medics and doctors who are risking their lives to save other people's lives.
And he told this really sad and beautiful story about medics pulling a little girl from the rubble and telling her that she was more [00:39:00] beautiful than the moon. And there's something about the, that, that gets me I, every time because it's like I just, that the. It's like humanity in the face of inhumanity that we keep asserting our humanity.
And the people of Gaza are really modeling that. Like they're some mood, there's steadfastness that their insistence on being humans, on reaching for and taking care of each other in the face of this inhumane condition. And I really loved that. That's. That's what Omar Laha spoke about at the end of that interview because he has a very clear eye view of the cynicism and just the horror of this time and what we're allowing, as a world that we're collectively allowing to happen.
But then also that it ended with this sense that, love is on the side of the oppressed, and love is, stronger than empire and he really sees that [00:40:00] is the path to a free Palestine. And I just took a lot of courage and hope from that.
Michael Reiley: Thank you. That's a great place to leave it. So thank you Wes, for your time today and the offerings you gave in this episode and your new book. And best of luck with that book and that the message spreads all over the planet 'cause we definitely need it.
Wendy Elisheva Somerson: Oh, thank you so much, Michael. It was a pleasure. [00:41:00]
