Safety plans are critical for people who are very depressed and / or suicidal.
If you or someone you love is having suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988
Finding support is very important. Accepting help is essential.
For us, M’kom Shalom was a huge part of healing. Family, friends, lots of walks, crying. Time. Learning to accept help.
Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, LCSW (retired)
For more than 25 years, through the National Center of Jewish Healing and the New York Jewish Healing Center programs, Rabbi Weintraub wrote and taught about the use of Jewish spiritual resources in confronting illness, loss, and trauma. He has trained thousands of social workers, rabbis, chaplains, doctors, nurses, and others around the U.S., Canada, and Israel, and took part in numerous Jewish and interfaith conferences on subjects ranging from The Legacy of 9/11, Domestic Violence, Depression, Suicide, Forgiveness, Shame, Family Relationships, and more. For nearly 15 years, he was an Adjunct Lecturer in Pastoral Skills at JTS, teaching courses in Loss and Bereavement, Jewish Spiritual Counseling, and Behavioral Health.
Rabbi Weintraub
M’kom Shalom: A Monthly Meeting for Survivors of a Close One’s Suicide
Founded in December 1999 at the Jewish Board in New York City, M’kom Shalom (Hebrew for “A Place of Peace”) is a monthly meeting of Jews and others who have lost a close one to suicide. For two decades, the group met in-person for 90 minutes at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services; with the onset of COVID, it began meeting independently via Zoom, and people have joined from several states in the U.S., as well as from Canada and Israel.
Each month, usually on the second Wednesday evening of the month, survivors join in an open, honest, and empathetic discussion of their complex and challenging grief, which, in addition to profound loss and sadness, may involve guilt, confusion, anger, fear, the search for meaning, relief, and/or resolution. Parents, spouses, siblings, adult children, and others find a special dimension of support, understanding, and insight, by sharing with and listening to others who have experienced the same tragedy and trauma of suicide.
M’kom Shalom is co-led by Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, LCSW and Dr. Adena Greenberg, PhD, both with decades of experience helping individuals, couples, families, and groups with bereavement and trauma.
For more information, please email Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub at syweintraub@gmail.com.
