Invis­i­ble Labor tells the sto­ry of Rachel Somerstein’s trau­mat­ic birth by unplanned cesare­an sec­tion. She describes how prac­tic­ing Judaism, and her iden­ti­ty as a Jew­ish woman and third-gen­er­a­tion Holo­caust sur­vivor, aid­ed her recov­ery. These scenes will res­onate with Jew­ish read­ers across the life­cy­cle, who will rec­og­nize how they’ve called upon Judaism and Juda­ic rit­u­al dur­ing times of cri­sis, trans­for­ma­tion, and growth. But more than this per­son­al sto­ry, the book pro­vides Juda­ic per­spec­tives about repro­duc­tive rights that couldn’t be more rel­e­vant today. Somer­stein explores Jew­ish out­looks on fetal and mater­nal life and con­trasts them with dom­i­nant Amer­i­can legal and the­o­log­i­cal takes on both. She demon­strates how these Juda­ic ideas, which uphold the val­ue of a mother’s life, shaped her deci­sion-mak­ing about her sec­ond preg­nan­cy and birth. This book res­onates per­son­al­ly, cul­tur­al­ly, and polit­i­cal­ly, which makes it ide­al for Jew­ish pro­gram­ming that seeks to explore Juda­ic respons­es to the ongo­ing infringe­ment on life­sav­ing repro­duc­tive care. Somerstein’s plumb­ing of col­lec­tive mem­o­ry and the lega­cy of inher­it­ed trau­ma will also be of inter­est to pro­grams about Jew­ish survival.