1 Rebuilding Jerusalem: Ezra-Nehemiah as Narrative Resilience Lisa J. Cleath Forthcoming in Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2021 This study analyzes the final form of Ezra-Nehemiah through the lens of historical trauma. Previous studies examine symptoms of trauma in literary characters and fragmented memories in the literature of the Bible. Historical trauma, however, focuses upon the cross-generational genetic, epigenetic, and social effects of trauma. Sociologists suggest that narrative construction is essential for multigenerational resilience. Based on parallels of forced migration and colonized repatriation, this study utilizes findings regarding historical trauma in indigenous American communities to illuminate the experiences constructed in the Masoretic form of Ezra-Nehemiah. From a colonized perspective, Ezra-Nehemiah imagines a response of resilience to the exile and long-term colonization of repatriated Judeans. Historical trauma theory would frame the reestablishment of the temple, the city walls, and the law as a narrative source of agency, resilience, and cultural clarity. Ezra-Nehemiah communicates to future generations that even though the trauma of exile has not finished, the ability to reassert agency and an adaptable differentiated identity is continual, pressing, and restorative. “To be rooted,” she said, “is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” Simone Weil Introduction Ezra-Nehemiah’s sources stem from a corpus of Second Temple Jewish literary responses to colonization and trauma. 1 At the center of the narrative are “the descendants of the province who came from the captives of the exile whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had exiled to Babylon; they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to their own town” (Ezra 2:1 בְּ נֵ ֣ י ם וִ ֽ י ה וּ דָ ֖ ה אִ ֥ י שׁ לְ ﬠִ י רֽ וֹ ׃ ר הֶ גְ לָ ֛ ה נְ ב וּ כַ דְ נֶ צּ וֹ ר] נְ ב וּ כַ דְ נֶ צַּ ֥ ר[ מֶ ֽ לֶ o ־ בָּ בֶ ֖ ל לְ בָ בֶ ֑ ל וַ יָּ שׁ֛ וּ ב וּ לִ י ר וּ שָׁ לַ ֥ ִ הַ מְּ דִ י נָ֗ ה הָ ֽ עֹ לִ י ם֙ מִ שְּׁ בִ ֣ י הַ גּ וֹ לָ֔ ה אֲ שֶׁ ֥ ). 2 Among those literary responses, it stands out as the most extreme in exclusivity, since it defines golah experience as essential to the covenant people and actively dissolves mixed marriages. The present work applies a social and psychological framework to the development of the composite Masoretic text of Ezra-Nehemiah. 3 While past studies have focused upon these books as 1 I am deeply grateful to Chris Hoklotubbe, Chris Jones, Roger Nam, Jeremy Smoak, and Ra’anan Boustan for serving as thoughtful interlocutors as I prepared this article. George Fox University is located on Atfalati and Kalapuya land: https://native- land.ca/maps/territories/atfalati/ 2 All translations from the BHS are my own unless otherwise noted. 3 For key discussions of Ezra-Nehemiah’s redaction history and that of the intermarriage question, see Juha Pakkala, Ezra the Scribe: The Development of Ezra 7-10 and Nehemia 8, BZAW 247 (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2004) and Pakkala.