Scorching heat, floods, and wildfires are not just environmental crises—they’re social ones too. We need a Left that sees the primacy of this threat.
Articles
Nelson Mandela: A Jewish Perspective
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Jews love and loved Nelson Mandela. He inspired us with his insistence that the old regime of apartheid would crumble more quickly and fully when faced with revolutionary love and compassion than when faced with anger and violence. Mandela also challenged us to think deeply about whether the current situation in Israel/Palestine reflects the ethic of compassion that is so central to Judaism.
Articles
The Spiritual Truth of JFK (As Movie and Reality)
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To put the Kennedy assassination in a historical perspective that is both spiritual and political, we here reprint Peter Gabel’s brilliant article on the subject, “The Spiritual Truth of JFK (As Movie and Reality),” originally published in Tikkun in March/April 1992 in response to the original release of Stone’s film.
Articles
Identity Politics and Spiritual Politics: Our Dance of Connection and Separation
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After years of apparent stability, white people may wake up in a neighborhood or country that feels unfamiliar and in which they are a “minority.” Then the question sneaks in: what does it mean to be American now?
Editorials & Actions
Lerner in Seattle and Bellingham
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Bellingham, Wa. Nov. 14 (Thursday) at 7 PM:
Rabbi Lerner speaks on “The Spiritual Transformation and Healing of the World: Building a Spiritually Progressive Political Party.” Location: 210 Academic Instructional Center West at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington (park at Fairhaven College, then walk through the tunnel under the road headed toward the main campus buildings. Academic West is the first building on your left).
Seattle Nov.
2013
The Original Rainbow Coalition: An Example of Universal Identity Politics
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Are identity and class-based politics necessarily at odds? Jakobi Williams answers with a resounding no, recalling a historic period when identity and class-based politics were dynamically entwined: the moment when the original Rainbow Coalition came into being. Set up by the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, the Rainbow Coalition offers an inspiring example of how identity politics can result in cross-class and interracial solidarity, rather than a fragmentation of the Left.
Fiction & Poetry Articles
Woolf, West, and the Conundrum of Veterans
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Arguably the two most immediate—and in my judgment, truest—books from the Great War, in spite of Hemingway’s assertion that there were none, were written by authors who not only never set foot on the battlefield; neither of them was a male.
Articles
My Response to “A Portrait of Jewish Americans”
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Are Jews in existential free-fall? According to the latest Pew Research Center report, 22 percent of Jews have abandoned Judaism and only 15 percent identify Judaism as essential to being Jewish. Rabbi Rami Shapiro delivers a stirring response.
2013
Gay Men in the Locker Room of the World – Big Whoop
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NBA player Jason Collins is the first active player in the four major U.S. sports to declare himself gay since Glenn Burke in the 1970s. For a nation that remains contemptuous of nonconforming notions of masculinity, the Collins event is not a question of tolerance for gays, but of masculine identity itself: can a man who falls in love with other men be integrated into the American ideal of manhood?
2013
Sikh Ethics and Political Engagement
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Built into Sikh tradition is a firm ethic of adhering to a truthful and just process—the idea that the ends do not justify the means. As a result, simply stating that attacks upon Sikhs in a post-9/11 context are “mistaken” or “misdirected” because they should be directed toward another group, Muslims, is an untenable deflection. Instead, American Sikhs walk a thin rhetorical line between declaring what we are—a group that aims to elevate the consciousness of all people to appreciate our common divinity—and declaring what we are not in order to avoid the short-term consequences of popular confusion.
2013
Shifting U.S. Demographics Demand New Cross-Racial Coalitions
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Obama won by appealing to a broad swath of voters—the young, ethnically diverse, and non-affluent—who typically aren’t a part of the traditional political calculus. But he failed to garner much support among older, whiter Americans. If our political fights pit one group, one generation, or one race against all the multicultural “others,” then we all will surely lose.
2013
It’s Not Just Child’s Play: Nature’s Powerful Effect on Children’s Well-Being
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Let us not forget our deep and intrinsic connection to the natural world—a bond that can motivate, sustain, and inform all our efforts. Nurturing children’s connection to nature is one crucial step in our multifaceted struggle to save the planet, and in turn the solace of the natural world can also become a lifeline for many children.
2013
Why Identity Group Work Strengthens Our Capacity for All Liberation Work
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There is value for leaders in being deeply rooted in their own primary identity group while at the same time learning how to be a fierce ally for all groups.