We at Tikkun were delighted to print short articles about Israel at 60 by the authors listed below in our print edition of the magazine. Many people who have read it are telling us it is a true classic—a range of writers going from those who feel Israel is just the most wonderful embodiment of Jewish values or universalist hopes to those who believe that Israel is defiling the highest values of Judaism, pushing Jews around the world away from the truths of their own religion in revulsion at the way that religion has become a handmaiden to a nationalist enterprise, and see Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people as not only immoral, but likely to generate anti-Semitism that will severely threaten the next generations of Jews all around the world. Mostly, these articles are not polemics, however, but express deep personal feelings, often a mixture of joy and pride and sadness and despair about what has happened to Israel, the Jewish people, and the Palestinian people. The discussion begins with an editorial by Rabbi Michael Lerner who describes the way both Jews and Palestinians are, each in their own way, suffering a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the problems with many of the strategies currently being used by peace advocates, and his own view of what might be a plausible contribution those of us (Jews and non-Jews alike) who want to help bring peace.

Often we’ve put our best articles on the web, and this has sometimes discouraged people from giving us the financial support we need to continue publishing the magazine (since they can get it for free without subscribing). This time we had so many incredible articles we couldn’t fit them all into the print edition, so we decided to put on our web site many wonderful pieces and not publish the print edition on the web. We hope that people who want to read these other articles that are in the print edition will buy a subscription, or at least buy this issue of the magazine. Pick up a copy on a newsstand or bookstore (and if they don’t carry Tikkun, take the time to speak to the person who decides which magazines they carry, and ask that person to start carrying Tikkun—if it can be sold, as it is, in stores in Texas and Alabama and Montana, it can be sold wherever else you live, including in Europe!) or order a copy of this May/June issue from us by mailing $8.95 to Tikkun, 2342 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704. Subscribe for future issues online at www.tikkun.org or call us at (510) 644-1200. Even better, join the Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org  and then Tikkun comes as a free part of the membership.

Here’s What You're Missing in the May/June Print Edition of Tikkun:

Rebecca Alpert, Reconstructionist rabbi, Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University: “Destined to be an American, not an Israeli, Jew”

Uri Avnery, Chair of Gush Shalom, the pre-eminent peace activist organization in Israel: “This is not the Israel our young people died for”

Aaron Back, Director of the Ford Israel Fund: “Some good news from Israel”—on civil and human rights, equality for Palestinian Israeli citizens, new partnerships for social change, and more

Theodore Bikel, internationally beloved singer and actor: “New voices of sanity and deliberative reason”

Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, Music Director of the American Symphony and The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestras: “New hopes are needed”

Daniel Boyarin, Professor of Talmudic Culture, University of California at Berkeley: “Their Nakba and ours”

Cherie R. Brown, founder and executive director of the National Coalition Building Institute: “Un-numbing from the Holocaust – a prerequisite for advancing dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian peace”

Bradley Burston, columnist for Ha’aretz newspaper and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com:  “Beyond tribalism”
                   
Hillel Cohen, author and teacher of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “Historical consciousness”

Harvey Cox, author of The Secular City and other works, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard: “If I forget…”

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, author and professor of Comparative Jewish Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “Older—and wiser?”

Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade and The Real Wealth of Nations, founder of the Center for Partnership Studies: “Israel’s dilemma”

Sander Gilman, Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and professor of psychiatry at Emory University: “The abandonment of socialist ideals”

Lynn Gottlieb, rabbi, director of the Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence: “Refusing to be enemies”

Joshua Levine Grater, rabbi, Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, National Secretary of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom “Teshuva: our only hope”

Arthur Green, Irving Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Religion and Rector, Rabbinical School at Hebrew College: “A Lover’s Lament”

Bonna Devora Haberman, teaches Jewish gender studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem: “Liberating Zionism”

Irwin Kula, rabbi, author, President of The National Jewish Center for Learning: “The incompleteness in each of us”

Laura Levitt, author, directs the Jewish Studies program at Temple University: “Grief and inspiration”

Brian D. McLaren, author of most recently Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis and a Revolution of Hope:  “Chosen for what?”

Shaul Magid, rabbi, Professor of Jewish Studies at Indiana University/Bloomington: “The ‘Zionist’ clock at 60”

Tzvi Marx, rabbi, author, Director of Education at the Folkerstma Institute for Talmud in Holland, lectures at Nijmegen’s Radboud University: “Make the dream come true”

Steve Masters, President of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Peace and Justice: “A measure of renewed hope”

Jessica Montell, Executive Director of B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: “Reclaiming the flag”

Vanessa Ochs, author, teaches at the University of Virginia: “Gender inequalities”

Alicia Ostriker, poet and critic, most recently author of For the Love of God: The Bible as an Open Book: “Israel and my lenses”

Mazin Qumsiyeh, served on the faculty of Duke and Yale Universities, currently a Palestinian peace activist: “Co-existence and joint action: a lesson from 60 years of conflict”

Omid Safi, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina: “A Muslim spiritual progressive perspective on Palestine/Israel (with a dash of Obama)”

Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology at Essex University, England, founder of Psychotherapists and Counselors for Social Responsibility: “Repression of dialogue”

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of Aleph, Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Spiritual Director of Yesod, Foundation for a Jewish Future: “Requiem for a dream. From an oldster: a lament with a mazel tov”

Rami Shapiro, author, columnist, blogger, teaches religion at Middle Tennessee State University: “Outgrowing our need for promised lands and chosen peoples”

Svi Shapiro, author, teaches in the Education and Cultural Studies program, University of North Carolina: “Two stories, no ‘Truth’”

David Shasha, director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage, Brooklyn, NY: “Sephardim and Israel today: “the Levantine Option” on shaky ground

Daniel Sperber, rabbi, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Advanced Torah Studies at Bar Ilan University: “Remember the positive”

Alon Tal, a leading environmentalist, professor at Ben Gurion University, board member of the Jewish National Fund: “A sixty year environmental learning curve”

Robert Thurman, Professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, Co-founder and President, Tibet House U.S.: “Happy Birthday, Israel”

Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles: “L.A. and Israel: a world apart but closer than ever”

Brian Walt, rabbi, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America: “Some hard truths—a personal reflection”

Arthur Waskow, rabbi, author, director of The Shalom Center: “Whom do we mourn?”

Steven Weinberg, awarded Nobel Prize in Physics, National Medal of Science, author, professor at the University of Texas at Austin: “Israel and the liberals”

C.K. Williams, poet, teaches Creative Writing at Princeton University: “The courage of poets and artists”

Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the General Board of Church & Society of the United Methodist Church: “Methodists divesting”

Howard Zinn, historian, playwright, social activist, author of A People’s History of the United States: “The poisons of nationalism”

Plus:
Michael Lerner, Editor of Tikkun: “Israel 60 Years later”

And:
Israel at 60: Poetry

Yehuda Amichai “I, May I Rest in Peace” and “Wildpeace” 

Chana Bloch “The Spoils” and “Power”

Rodger Kamenetz “Jerusalem Bus”

Jacqueline Osherow “Fata Morgana”

Marge Piercy “The Two Cities”

Dahlia Ravikovitch “Around Jerusalem” and “Jewish Portrait”