Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/other_voices/editorials__actions/page/9/)
HOMO MORALIS
A Review of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Barry L. Schwartz
A child asked his mother, “Where do people come from?”
“Well,” the mother said, “Adam and Eve were the first parents on earth. They had babies who became grownups.
It was in the 1950s. The war between David Ben-Gurion and Ha’olam Hazeh,” the weekly magazine of which I was the editor, reached its peak. One day I went to swim at the Galei Gil pool at the entrance to Ramat Gan, and ran into Ezer Weizman, the commander of the Israeli Air Force. We both loved to joke around. We stood around and laughed and then Yitzhak Rabin came up to us.
(Editor’s note: Noam Chomsky at 89 is one of the great gifts to all of us
who seek a world of peace and justice. Thanks to our media ally TomDispatch.com for sharing this with Tikkun magazine and the Network of Spiritual Progressives and our community of readers. –Rabbi Michael Lerner rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com)
The Trump Presidency
Or How to Further Enrich “The Masters of the Universe”
By Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian
[This interview has been excerpted from Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, the new book by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian to be published this December.]
David Barsamian: You have spoken about the difference between Trump’s buffoonery, which gets endlessly covered by the media, and the actual policies he is striving to enact, which receive less attention. Do you think he has any coherent economic, political, or international policy goals? What has Trump actually managed to accomplish in his first months in office?
Noam Chomsky: There is a diversionary process under way, perhaps just a natural result of the propensities of the figure at center stage and those doing the work behind the curtains. At one level, Trump’s antics ensure that attention is focused on him, and it makes little difference how.
Editor’s Note: While we agree strongly with the author of the letter to us below that it is tragedy that Israel continues to supply arms to Myanamar, we disagree with the premise that Israel is a “democratic country” as long as it refuses to grant equal voting rights to the millions of Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza under Israeli rule either directly or indirectly. And Israel is NOT the only non-democratic country to be selling arms to Myanamar, and joins that group of ethically reprehensible countries in this respect. We at Tikkun condemn all of those countries for their immoral behavior, including Israel! Letter to Tikkun:
Israel is the ONLY democratic country in the world that continues to
sell munitions to Myanmar, in spite of the fact that it is being used
for ethnic cleansing. While there are a number of global organizations that have related to
this terrible fact, the Israeli government and many (and perhaps a
great majority) of the Jews in Israel have tuned out those
organizations as being anti-Zionist and antisemitic (the first may be
true, the second is not, for the most part).
A lesson from Germany on eradicating a legacy of hate
by Martha Minow
EDU BAYER/THE NEW YORK TIMESA white nationalist carries a Nazi flag during a protest in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12. By Martha Minow SEPTEMBER 29, 201
What does it take to remove evil and stop hatred? This question has plagued humans throughout centuries, and although there is no simple answer, Germany changed from a pariah state to exemplar of constitutional democracy through the combination of post-World War II criminal trials, reforms of law and media, and investment by new generations who asked their parents persistently, “Where were you during the war?” A crucial element came with the criminal trials, initially through the international military tribunal and then subsequent state-based prosecutions. Seventy years ago, on Sept.
Notes from the Jewish tradition that may be helpful to people in every tradition and to people who need to connect to ancient spiritual wisdom
WHAT MAKES THE Jewish approach to repentance and atonement relevant to North American and global politics is that it does not focus only on the ways we as individuals “sinned,” (actually, the real meaning of the word sin is to miss the mark; not some sense of being drenched in evil, but just getting off course) but rather recognizes us as part of a community for which we must take collective responsibility. North Americans are so used to the extreme individualism promoted by capitalist values that we rarely think of ourselves as having responsibility for each other. But that is precisely what is needed. So we at Tikkun, the interfaith and secular-humanist-and-atheist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives, and Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls, have developed a set of confessions in the form of “we have sinned when . .
Trump on the Warpath
Jeffrey Sachs || Sep 27, 2017 || Project Syndicate
The US suffers from an arrogance of military power disconnected from today’s geopolitical realities. The US is on this path again, heading for a collision with a nuclear-armed adversary, and it will remain on it unless other countries, other American leaders, and public opinion block the way. NEW YORK – Fifteen years after George W. Bush declared that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea formed “an axis of evil,” Donald Trump, in his maiden address to the United Nations, denounced Iran and North Korea in similarly vitriolic terms. Words have consequences, and Trump’s constitute a dire and immediate threat to global peace, just as Bush’s words did in 2002. Back then, Bush was widely praised for his response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. It’s easy to rally the public to war, and that was especially true after 9/11.
[Editor’s note: the rise of the racist Right in Germany in the Sept. 2017 election once again demonstrates the weakness of a centrist politics whose only holy principle is compromise in order to get or hold power. Just as in Brexit in England and in the Trump victory in the U.S., the centrists continue to believe that “more of the same” will satisfy people whose lives are filled with pain and frustration. Sadly, the European left, like the American left, has little to offer beyond rational economic programs–unable to understand the psycho-spiritual pain generated by the competitive market place and hence unable to speak to the depth of frustration many experience in their daily lives. We at Tikkun have analyzed these dynamics in The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right (HarperSanFrancisco) and in our analyses of the 2016 election https://www.tikkun.org/newsite/we-cant-transform-american-politics-till-we-understand-the-psychodynamics-at-play .
I cannot remember saying anything positive about Netanyahu in the past few decades, but in the case of the Kurds, I must acknowledge that he is finally doing something decent by supporting Kurdish independence. Yes, it may be for the wrong reasons as a NY Times story on Saturday Sept. 23rd suggested when it mentioned the possibility that a Kurdish state on a border with Iran might provide Israel with a military launching place for a future struggle with Iran. But Lincoln might have freed the slaves for bad reasons also. So what?
FIRST DAY of ROSH HASHANAH
TALK BY CHERIE R BROWN
SEPTEMBER 21, 2017
It is an honor for me to be speaking today. When David called me shortly after the events in Charlottesville and asked me to try and say something that could reach people’s hearts, connecting the Torah reading for today to the issue of racism, I was first humbled, and then I totally panicked. The Torah reading is about Sarah telling Abraham to kick out Ishmael and Hagar and God telling Avram to listen to Sarah. It’s about Hagar and Ishmael wandering in the desert, about to die from lack of water and their crying out to God. The Torah reading is about racism; it’s about exile; it’s about nation building; it’s about starvation; and it’s about conflicting narratives. It becomes quickly overwhelming. And the growing list of issues we face today are just like that: they are overwhelming. White supremacists shouting racist and anti Semitic chants. Devastating floods in Texas, India, and Bangladesh. Hurricanes in the Caribbean and Florida and Puerto Rico. Not to mention all the contributing factors from climate change. A proliferation of nuclear weapons. And that doesn’t even begin to address all of the horrific policies of our 45th President. Where do we even begin? Several years ago, I was about to give a keynote speech at the University of Texas in Denton. Right before my talk, the international director of Amnesty International addressed the group. He gave a hard hitting speech about all the horrific human rights violations taking place worldwide. I happened to be in the women’s room right after his talk, and I overheard two young women commiserating with each other, “There are so many awful things going on in the world. After that talk, we are totally depressed. Nothing we do could possibly make a difference. Let’s just go home.” And yet, Rosh Hashanah is calling us, shouting to us to break through our numbness, to hear the sound of the Shofar–to dare to let our hearts break about what is happening all around us. To not just go home. So this morning, I want to try and break through the feelings of helplessness I know we all battle and to offer four specific actions or attitudes on the work on racism that we can each do now.
(Editor’s Note: Tikkun does not have enough staff to verify claims made by our authors on our website. So we have to trust the research done by our writers. In the case of Uri Avnery, the leader of the Jewish peace movement organization Gush Shalom, I do not know of any claims he made on our website that have ever turned out to be false, but since we know nothing of Smotrich, never even heard of him, we cannot verify Avnery’s claims.)
From Uri Avnery, Tel Aviv, 1 Tishrey, 5778
Recently Smotrich gave a speech to his followers, which he intended to be a national event, the turning of a page in Jewish history. He was gracious enough to mention me in this monumental message. He said that after the 1948 war, in which the State of Israel was founded, Uri Avnery and a small band of followers created the ideology of “two states for two peoples”, and by patient work over many years succeeded in turning this idea into a national consensus, indeed into an axiom.
My Qualms and Self-Correction
“Tshuvah: Till by Turning, Turning, We Come Round Right”
I have been having qualms about some aspects of what I wrote a few days ago in response to Rabbis Marc Angel’s and Uri Regev’s open letter called “Vision Statement: Israel As A Jewish Democratic State.” (See the link at the end of this message, for their text.)
I have no qualms about the basic religio-political stance I set forth, but I do have qualms about the way I said it, So I want to do some self-correction – what especially at this time of year we call “tshuvah,” turning in a more ethical direction. As I wrote, I started reading Rabbis Regev’s and Angel’s “Vision” statement with hope, based on its title. But I finished reading with deep disappointment. I share the anger and sense of betrayal that many of my colleagues feel about the Israeli government’s refusal to recognize marriages or conversion ceremonies at which we officiate, or to honor the spiritual presence of Women of the Wall.
(Editor’s note: All too often, people in the liberal and progressive world scorn those Americans who know little about their Constitutional rights or the rights of others. But actually it is more appropriate to respond with outrage at an educational system that has failed to inform them of these rights and how they work. Similarly, many Americans really know little about the actual history and workings of racism or anti-Semitism in this society. But if you have not been exposed to it directly, have never seen the t.v. series “Roots” or been given a mandatory course on racism, and been taught in your church or school about the way Christianity popularized anti-Semitism for 1700 years, and your family didn’t really understand how these hateful ideas are infused in popular culture, how would you know how pernicious they are? Rather than look down on those who don’t know, the society should be asking “How do we now engage in a massive educational venture for adults as well as for high school students to help them understand about racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and, very important, classism and age-ism?”
A 99% Manifesto
Dan Brook
A specter is haunting America and the world; the specter of gross inequality. The inequality is economic, to be sure, but also social, political, racial, sexual, educational, medical, occupational, gastronomical, geographical, and otherwise.
Directly inspired by the massive protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece, Israel, India, Chile, Wisconsin, and elsewhere in 2011 as well as the hactivism of Anonymous and the shout out by Adbusters and other activists over that summer, Occupy Wall Street started on September 17th, 2011 as a reaction to the corpocracy — the big, powerful, wealthy corporations and their financial system with its limitless greed and disproportionate influence on our government and in our society, symbolized by Wall Street.
After being publicly maligned and forcefully suppressed, as well as internally divided and somewhat rudderless, the decentralized Occupy movement, now several years on, catalyzed many different local individuals and groups continuing the struggle in their own quieter and dispersed ways. To occupy is to make a bad situation better by seeking policies, situations, and systems that benefit the 99%, not simply the 1%.
(Editor’s Note: Ariel Dorfman has been sharing his writing with Tikkun for several decades, so it is a joy to share this latest article, via our media allyTomDispatch.com . Dorfman was one of those profound thinkers who worked with the democratically elected Salvador Allende regime in Chile till the U.S. managed to support a coup by vicious military leaders whose subsequent murder of thousands of progressive Chileans Dorfman managed to escape. Please read his insights on Donald Trump below. For those of you who just received our latest issue of Tikkun magazine in the mail with its focus on Trump Trauma, consider Dorfman’s piece a fitting addition to the analyses put forward there, including the article on Leonard Cohen’s music as a way to help get through some of the worst of the Trump regime. Though not yet as murderous as the Chilean dictatorship, the Trump regime has the same instinctive hate-oriented and “power-over-others” orientation that is the cultural foundation for every variant of fascistic regimes.