Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology by Carol P Christ and Judith Plaskow.
US Politics
Seeing through the Wall
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The creation of, Seeing through the Wall, a documentary; American Jews visit the occupied territories.
Articles
Love Will Not Save You
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For years after, you will ask yourself, Should I have held her that night? Do you hold someone who tells you this? You won’t remember holding her…
Editorials & Actions
Racism After Charlottesville
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Rabbi Michael Lerner writes: “…at a vigil to honor the Charolttesville victims I attended last night in Berkeley where the fascists promise to hold their next large rally August 27th, I encountered not only sadness, but fear and confusion as many yearned for a coherent strategy that the American Left sorely needs.”
Culture
The Empty Chair
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After dinner his father would sit across the formica kitchen table and fire words at him. Bellicose, symbiosis, cartilaginous, revenant. The rule was, he did not have to go to bed until he got a word wrong.
Other Voices
March for the Environment April 29
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Fight against climate change by joining us on April 22 in Washington DC for the #ClimateMarch.
Editorials & Actions
Obery Hendricks on MLK jr. and His Legacy
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Editor’s note: Having just returned (Monday, Jan. 16, 2016) from participating in a demonstration and march in Oakland, Ca. today in honor of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr, I was glad to receive this submission to Tikkun (below) by African American studies professor (and Tikkun magazine author) Obery Hendricks. It is an important counter to the kind of rhetoric and tone I heard at today’s demonstration. At the rally before the march began I heard one of the M.C.s ask the crowd to repeat “we will win by ANY MEANS NECESSARY” — a slogan I first heard from the Black Panther Party in 1968 — in clear attempt to repudiate King’s message both then and now about how to fight racism.
Other Voices
The need for a low-carbon energy based economy won’t go away
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Jeffrey D. Sachs makes it clear why we need to switch to a low-fuel economy.
Editorials & Actions
Police Assaults on African American Women: Close Encounters of a Dangerous Kind by Rev. Daniel Buford
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Close Encounters of the Dangerous Kind :
Unarmed Women, Girls of African Descent and Violent Police Encounters- Arbitrary Punishments, Detentions, Killings, Torture, Extra Judicial Punishments, Summary Executions 1982-2015
Complied by Daniel A. Buford, Executive Director
Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute Berkeley, CA
September 3, 2016
The list is a compilation of thirty cases of unarmed African women and female children and the violent encounters they experienced at the hands of law enforcement agencies from every region of the United States. This list is an excerpt of a “Shadow Report” that I am in the process of preparing to be submitted to the United Nations human rights treaty bodies over the next five years of periodic treaty review in New York and Geneva, Switzerland. Cases that are listed here are noteworthy in the current national discussions about the Black Lives Matter movement. While most of the Black Lives Matter discussions and media attention have focused on the foul law enforcement treatment accorded to African American men and boys, very little attention or scrutiny is being devoted to the alarming numbers of African American women and girls who are often treated even worse than Black men in unarmed encounters with police officers. An example of this is the rough physical treatment that mothers, girls, and pregnant women experience.
Editorials & Actions
There Oughta Be a Law… Should Prison Really Be the American Way? By Rebecca Gordon
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Editor’s note: Here is another piece from our ally TomDispatch.com by Rebecca Gordon with an introduction by Tom Engelhardt. To understand America, you have to understand the “friendly fascism” that already exists for a section of the population that regularly rotates through our criminal justice system. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
The figures boggle the mind. Approximately 11 million Americans cycle through our jails and prisons each year (including a vast “pre-trial population” of those arrested and not convicted and those who simply can’t make bail). At any moment, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, there are more than 2.3 million people in our “1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 942 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.” In some parts of the country, there are more people in jail than at college. If you want a partial explanation for this, keep in mind that there are cities in this country that register more arrests for minor infractions each year than inhabitants. Take Ferguson, Missouri, now mainly known as the home of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager shot and killed in 2014 by a town policeman.
Activism
Brexit, Conflict Resolution and Democracy
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Most folks, who voted for Brexit, worried about the costs of globalization, feared open borders bringing mass migration into Britain and agonized about ‘faceless’ bureaucrats in Brussels threatening their national sovereignty. Those who voted to remain in the EU, and others who were appalled at the eventual outcome, reacted predictably. Most blamed manipulative politicians, Britain’s infamous tabloid press, xenophobic Little Englanders or even the ill informed rubes who didn’t know any better. Pundits bemoaned the end of post WW2 internationalism; the downing of protectionist shutters; the resumption of nationalistic passions or even the return to the bad old days of European wars and collective bloodletting. Some political scientists questioned the use of a single referendum and said Cameron should have asked for three, spaced, so people would have time to consider the ramifications. Presumably having faith that after casting one (trial balloon of a) vote, we would reflect and make the second (slightly more deliberate one) after which, we would be in a better position to make the third (and finally intelligent) vote. Phew, third time lucky. Playing rock, paper, scissors for as long as it takes to get the right result. Does the democratic process have to look like a visit to one of Trump’s casinos to make it work for us?
Editorials & Actions
Cherie Brown on Black Lives Matter Platform and Israel
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Black Lives Matter Platform and Israel
By Cherie Brown
In the new Black Lives Matter Platform, there is a section on International issues that focuses on Israel. The platform describes the current oppression of Palestinians and the ongoing occupation by labeling it genocide. The use of this term, ‘genocide’, stirred up enormous upset amongst many Jews, both from the mainstream Jewish community and the progressive Jewish community.
Many Jews alive today had relatives who were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust in the middle of the 20th century and find the use of the term genocide to describe what is happening to Palestinians offensive. Some Jews (like the JCRC of Boston) responded by saying they will now have nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. Other groups, Truah, for example, took offense with the use of the term genocide but called for continued support of Black Lives Matter and ongoing dialogue about the disagreements.
Editorials & Actions
Is Violence Justified to Resist Racist Oppression?
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Is Violence Justified to Resist Racial Oppression? Editor’s Note: While I disagree with the author’s argument for use of violence to resist oppression, I do think that his points have validity and that those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life must confront the complex realities facing oppressed peoples in the US and around the world and come up with effective strategies so that people do NOT resort to violence. I believe we have done that with our interfaith and secular-humaist-and-atheist-welcoming NSP– Network of Spiritual Progressives (particularly thorugh the strategies inherent in the Spriitual Covenant with America www.tikkun.org/covenant, the Global and Domestic Marshall Plan www.tikkun.org/gmp and the ESRA–Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution www.tikkun.org/esra, we are in a weak position to effectively counter those who resort to violence until a lot more people who agree with our approach actually join our NSP and begin to develop active chapters that push for these programs, liberal foundations start to fund us, and people with some disposable income begin to financially and politically back our activities, including our Empathy Tribe notion described in the editorials of our Summer 2016 and Fall 2016 issues of Tikkun Magazine. I should also point out that violence by the oppressed frequently leads to more violence, either the overwhelming violence of the oppressors who have control of the armies, or, in the few instances where the oppressed actually succeed in violently overthrowing their oppressors, they all to often have then created societies in which they use violence to perpetuate the new regime they have created, thereby oppressing others. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
Former Judge William Boardman of Windsor County, Vermont – is well known in the progressive community for putting politicians of both major political “parties” on the spot…
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President Obama observes a ceremony to honor NATO soldiers at the NATO summit in Warsaw on Friday.
Editorials & Actions
Stop the Violence!!!!!
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STOP THE VIOLENCE! We mourn all the victims of violence, including the large volume of violence against people that goes unreported and underreported, including poor people and people of color, but also we mourn for the very few police officers who have been hurt or killed by those outraged at the way police have been harassing or murdering members of their community, their people, their race, etc. EVERY HUMAN LIFE IS PRECIOUS. None of the violence is ok. Not black on black violence, not white on black violence or black on white violence, not police violence, not acts of violent retribution.
Activism
A Call for Love in the Face of Hatred: Rabbi Lerner’s talk at Muhammad Ali’s Memorial
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In case you who missed it, here’s Rabbi Lerner’s talk at Muhammed Ali’s funeral. His vision is all the more relevant given the horrific killings in Orlando and the way it is being used to promote fear, hatred and Islamophobia. It has gone viral on social media and inspired over a million people already. If it inspires you as well, please read below for how to be an ally with Rabbi Lerner to help build the world he describes.