A com­pan­ion guide to Ashke­nazi Herbal­ism, Woven Roots explores the rich his­to­ry of plant-based med­i­cine and folk heal­ing tra­di­tions of East­ern Europe from 1600 through the present.

Authors Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel map the inter­wo­ven his­to­ries of the peo­ples of the Pale of Set­tle­ment, reveal­ing untold sto­ries of coop­er­a­tion, shared knowl­edge, and mutu­al aid. The book shares how the peo­ple in this region — so often asso­ci­at­ed with con­flict — often thrived in deep and rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ships with the land and each oth­er. Tend­ing and rely­ing on the nat­ur­al world, car­ing for their com­mu­ni­ties, and trans­mit­ting med­i­c­i­nal lega­cies from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, the heal­ers of the Pale served as pro­found points of con­nec­tion, inter­de­pen­dence, and life-sus­tain­ing knowl­edge.

The authors offer illu­mi­nat­ing — and sur­pris­ing — orig­i­nal research on:
 

• The piv­otal but his­tor­i­cal­ly over­looked con­tri­bu­tions of women folk healers
• Deep, ances­tral­ly root­ed tra­di­tions of care for land and nature among Ashke­nazi Jews
• The rich cul­tur­al exchanges among Jews, Mus­lims, and Chris­tians that allowed life in the Pale to flourish
• New­ly dis­cov­ered recipes
• Endur­ing lega­cies of mutu­al aid and com­mu­ni­ty interdependence
• How long-lost links between East­ern and West­ern folk knowl­edge can shed new light on your her­itage and ances­tral connections
• Tra­di­tion­al mag­i­cal prac­tices of the Ashkenazim

This book includes an illus­trat­ed mate­ria med­ica with plant names in Yid­dish, Lithuan­ian, Ukrain­ian, and more. Informed by years of field and aca­d­e­m­ic research, Woven Roots recov­ers the lega­cies of Jew­ish heal­ers beyond myth, offer­ing insights into the heal­ing wis­dom and intereth­nic cul­tur­al exchanges among mar­gin­al­ized groups in East­ern Europe and Eurasia.