Publishers Weekly
★ 09/25/2023
Belser (Rabbinic Tales of Destruction), a professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University, delivers a rigorous and broad-minded analysis of disability in the Bible, bringing “critical testimony from disability communities” into conversation with “more conventional sources of Jewish wisdom.” Arguing that disability can affect “bodies and minds in a thousand different ways,” Belser examines Moses’s “clumsy tongue” as a part of “divine design”; Jacob’s limp, which “lingers” after his encounter with an angel, “as a powerful reminder that disability is an essential part of what it means to be human”; and Leviticus’s restrictions against priests with physical deformities as evidence of the brutal (and age-old) “power of ableism” that marks “certain bodies” as “inferior.” Elsewhere, Belser contrasts scriptural descriptions of sisters Leah (who had “weak” eyes) and Rachel (the striking woman Jacob loved) to posit that beauty—with which disability is often contrasted—is culturally “positioned as a measure of a woman’s worth, the most crucial fact to understand about her personhood.” Belser’s rebuttal that “conventional beauty... cannot hold our splendor” uplifts, and it echoes the book’s eloquently argued message that disability is “part of God’s own brilliant beauty” and “pulses through the very fabric of God’s making.” This is an impressive achievement. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Belser’s book is a triumph of theological insight, disability activism, and honest, personal, hard-won wisdom . . . An excellent, impressive addition to the conversation around theology and disability that shines on many levels.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review
“Eloquently argued . . . This is an impressive achievement.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“A fresh perspective on disability.”
—Spirituality and Practice
“Julia Watts Belser has written a book about joy, a political manifesto, a cry from the heart, and a spiritual companion. . . Her writing is both intimate and eloquent.”
—Emily Soloff, The Christian Century
“Written with a scholar’s deft touch and a poet’s lyrical precision, this book will draw you in to think and feel differently about sacred texts and disabled people’s complex and luminous lives, in the troublesome context of ableism’s strictures and structures. By the end, I was transported to new vistas, unimagined openings in my heart and understanding. Julia Watts Belser’s ability to move differently carries the reader to new realms: Loving Our Own Bones is a book that flies on wheels, a dazzling and revelatory ride.”
—Rebecca Ann Parker, co-author of Saving Paradise
“This book reaches back to the oldest stories of the Hebrew Bible and retells them through perspectives on flourishing in bodies considered disabled—the kinds of bodies we all inevitably inhabit. Loving Our Own Bones is a gift to us all and a call to love ourselves and one another in all our varied, distinctive, and entirely human bodies.”
—Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, author of Extraordinary Bodies
“Julia Watts Belser is a Wisdom Rebbe, a leader, an innovator, and a sacred guide to the deepest depths of all that makes us human.”
—Neshama Carlebach, award-winning singer/songwriter
“This is an extraordinary book: beautifully written and accessible yet filled with scholarly insights; profoundly spiritual yet also boldly critical; fiercely angry yet also affirming and joyous. Readers of Loving Our Own Bones will not only come away with a deepened understanding of disability and ableism but will also likely have their views of many biblical texts challenged and transformed.”
—Judith Plaskow, author, with Carol P. Christ, of Goddess and God in the World
“An unapologetically embodied text, Loving Our Own Bones is essential reading for anyone interested in queer crip world-making. Seamlessly weaving together memoir, disability theory, biblical criticism, and activist practice, Julia Watts Belser offers readers vital new frameworks for understanding the textures of disabled life and the possibilities of story. Placing radically inclusive access at the center of her spiritual work, Belser reveals how loving our own bones is a collective act.”
—Alison Kafer, author of Feminist, Queer, Crip
"...A profound gift of disability wisdom, a radical act of spiritual imagination that can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning with each other and with our bodies."
—Ilana Maymind, lecturer at the Religious Studies Department at Chapman University
Library Journal
★ 08/01/2023
Belser's (Jewish studies and disability studies, Georgetown Univ.; Rabbinic Tales of Destruction) book is a triumph of theological insight, disability activism, and honest, personal, hard-won wisdom. She weaves her own experience as a queer, disabled, feminist scholar and rabbi into critical, sensitive, profound encounters with Jewish and Christian sacred writings. Belser challenges texts and practices that have harmed and marginalized disabled communities, yet she still returns to these texts to reread, to confront ableist implications and interpretations, and to reject or claim. Her skill in engaging these passages is a superb example of how to draw spiritual direction from within a religious tradition, while asking hard questions and refusing to accept when power is wielded, consciously or unconsciously, against marginalized communities. The book asks, what would it mean if, instead of imagining God as an able-bodied man wielding infinite power, the world could see the God who identifies with the experience of the wheelchair user? To answer, Belser turns to a passage in Ezekiel that offers a vision of just that, a glimpse of "God on Wheels." VERDICT An excellent, impressive addition to the conversation around theology and disability that shines on many levels.—Zachariah Motts
