Solidarity After the Massacre of Jews in Pittsburgh….and How Best to Defend Ourselves

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On Saturday, October 27th, shortly after the largest massacre of Jews in U.S. history took place in Pittsburgh, I received a message from the leadership of the largest African American Baptist Church in Oakland, California. Recalling that we at Tikkun had brought dozens of our subscribers and members  to their church on several occasions when African Americans had been murdered by white racist fanatics, they asked me when Beyt Tikkun would be having a service to which they could attend to show their solidarity with us. As one of their leaders put it, we “are praying for the Jewish community that is under violent assault from White Supremacy just like African Americans. You have stood with the Black community without hesitation in the past. We stand with you today! Please let us know how to be good allies in this troubling time.”

That was soon followed by messages from a range of Muslim organizations with essentially the same message: the attacks on Jews are no different from attacks on Muslims. We need to all stand together.

Articles

Palestinian Authority (PA) Tortures Dissenters

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It’s sad but true that people who have been brutalized often end up being brutalizers of others. It happens in the U.S., it has happened to many Israelis, and it happens throughout the world, including the Arab and Muslim worlds.  While we support the right of the Palestinians to their own national self-determination and the right of Jews to their own national self-determination, we’ve never romanticized the Palestinian people or the Israeli people (or for that matter, any other national entity including the U.S., U.K. etc.). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/23/palestinian-authority-hamas-torture-peaceful-critics-rights-group-says?fbclid=IwAR3beQ2rb6udS-EyZxMhooZsh0Sy-qOFbwWmVujj3eSkayR9HaptWlUXHew

https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-details-torture-by-pa-and-hamas-in-their-parallel-police-states/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2018-10-23&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR2fxubZZ_yX4NLpur7_yyBUAJ4lbbaG-cqe9W1VIHjOd-k8-axy240rVrg

Rabbi Michael Lerner   rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com

Editorials & Actions

How rootedness in biblical tradition might inspire civil disobedience

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Ordained from Hebrew College of Boston in 2014, Rabbi Alana Alpert serves a dual position as rabbi of Congregation T’chiyah and as a community organizer with Detroit Jews for Justice. Because they have been working closely together on the Michigan Poor Peoples Campaign, she invited Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann to share the teaching for Rosh Hashanah. A graduate of Union Theological Seminary in NYC, Bill is a non-violent activist, author, and United Methodist pastor recently retired from St Peter’s Episcopal, Detroit. What follows are their remarks for the day.  

 

Rabbi Alana Alpert: Shanah tovah!!!

Articles

The Obligation to Speak Up in the Age of Trump

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David Lehrer, who headed the West Coast ADL for 27 years, and now runs Community Advocates, Inc., a non-profit since then, sent Rabbi Moshe Levin this piece he published.  Rabbi Levin adds: “I can not imagine a better expression/response to the Jewish establishment who say, Sha, Shtil, don’t be political – we just want religion from the pulpit. ”  Rabbi Lerner adds: For those who use the High Holidays to address everything except the destruction of the life support system of planet earth, the immoral treatment of refugees, the vast economic and political inequalities in this society, the reactionary nationalism that Trump’s election has promoted both here and around the world, and who instead focus on narrowly theological questions or urge a spirituality that is focused on being present to the present moment in their lives, but never includes in that present moment what is happening to the tens of millions of people who are being badly hurt by what the U.S. is dong and what Israel is doing at the present moment [implicitly denying that we are all ONE and part of the unity of all being and that the pain of others around the world and in our society ricochets into all of our lives creating depression and despair in ways of which we need to become conscious), I say: please read and re-read the Haftorah for Yom Kippur in which Isaiah, 3500 years ago, standing outside the ancient Temple in Jerusalem to those going to worship God while ignoring the evils and suffering around them. (Isaiah 57, sentences 14 to ch. 58: 14). The Obligation to Speak Up in the Age of Trump
By David A. Lehrer
dlehrer@cai-la.org
Community Advocates, Inc., 865 South Figueroa St., 3339, Los Angeles, CA 90017August 2018
 Editor’s note:
Many in the Jewish world has been fascinated by the internecine discussion on the role of our leaders, from Federations to rabbis, regarding speaking up about Donald Trump.

Articles

AntiSemitism & Corbyn’s run for Prime Minister of the UK

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[Editor’s note: this article appeared in Mondoweiss, an important cite presenting frequently accurate critiques of Israeli policies. It is written by an author who has never been willing to write for Tikkun, perhaps because we address not only the suffering of the Palestinian people but also the ongoing PTSD of the Jewish people as well. Nevertheless, his criticisms of those who critique leftist critiques of Israeli policy are often on target. In presenting his views, we do so not to endorse them but to alert our readers to this debate about Corbyn’s antiSemitism. While I do NOT accept many of the arguments put forward in this article, I do agree with its major thesis–Corbyn, the head of the British Labor Party, is not an anti-Semite, and it is a disservice to the Jewish people to raise that claim against progressives whose primary sins are that a. they have strong criticisms of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, and b. that they refuse to allow the pro-Israel lobbies around the world to define what is or is not acceptable criticism of Israel.