Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Yocheved Sidof traces her ancestry back 2,500 years, to the Babylonian exile from Jerusalem. This pivotal event in Jewish history forced her forebears to seek sanctuary in new lands, and they ultimately established a community in Mashhad, in present-day Iran. In the 1970s, Yocheved's parents emigrated to the Midwestern United States, where she was raised in an Orthodox Jewish community steeped in Hasidic practice and Jewish mysticism.

In this extraordinary dialogue, Yocheved and Matthew explore how collective healing work led by Thomas Hübl and team brought her into contact with both the fears and the strengths she inherited from her female ancestors, who risked their lives to preserve their faith underground for 120 years in Mashhad after a pogrom and forced conversion in 1839. She also describes her sense of being invited into a new form of embodied feminine spiritual leadership by her great-grandfather, who was a prominent rabbi in Tehran.

Matthew and Yocheved discuss how these processes informed her decision to begin leading annual pilgrimages to the sites of concentration camps in Poland, and how these contribute to collective and ancestral healing, across space and time.

About Yocheved Sidof

Yocheved is a spiritual and community leader, activist, writer, mystic, and guide. She harnesses decades of social entrepreneurship, leadership in progressive education, certifications, and lived experience — including her own wounds and healing — into the sacred and contemplative space she weaves at Ohmek, a community for women and men pursuing deeper ways of being.

Resources

Ohmek

Underneath the Underneath (Podcast series of Yocheved's teachings)

The Witnessing Journey

The Marranos of Mashhad: The Story of a Jewish Community That Led a Double Life for 120 Years

Recording Date: 12 February 2025

00:00 Introduction to Collective Healing 01:35 Yocheved's Journey of Vulnerability and Belonging 08:45 Exploring Ancestral Roots and Identity 16:25 The Path to Spiritual Leadership 32:01 The Power of Community and Healing 38:08 The Witnessing Journey to Aushwitz in Poland 48:43 Future Aspirations and Closing Reflections