The Tikkun Daily Winter Fundraising Drive is in full swing- and we would like to extend a huge thank you to those who have begun to help us reach our goal. We’ve raised 20% of our goal in the first week of our campaign and we couldn’t have done it without your help.
Another vital aspect of keeping Tikkun alive is memberships. Have you joined our movement? Our memberships are on a sliding scale, but if you make a donation of at least $50 you get a free subscription to our print magazine. We are also willing to work with recurring monthly donations, as a steady source of help is much more sustainable in the long run. With the membership, you get access to exclusive web-only offerings and the full web versions of our print articles, along with insider updates on trainings, conferences, and events!
PLUS, Our Special (Musical) Gift to You!
Are you curious as to how your donations to Tikkun will bring change to the world? This week we’d like to look at the first reason:our Israel/Palestine Workshops.
We have been leading workshops on “Grieving and Mourning What’s Happening in Israel and Palestine and Learning to Communicate Across Differences” in response to requests from folks throughout the country. This is what some have said about these trainings:
“It was a powerful, life changing workshop”
Or from another:
“I actually feel a sense of spaciousness and hope that I can have these conversations in a more productive way.”
We are now working with students on university campuses who have been trying to challenge the policy of Hillel Foundations which will not allow Jewish speakers who are critical of Israeli policies, and we are finding that despite the near-universal control of the Jewish media by the pro-Netanyahu forces, there are growing numbers of younger Jews who understand that Israel’s policies are actually fostering anti-Semitism rather than protecting Jews from the irrational hatreds that led to previous pogroms and genocide against us. Tikkun is speaking to that generation (but they are mostly not yet in a position to financially help Tikkun survive). This is one reason we seek your help. Another is that these trainings take time, space, and energy to plan and provide. Because we like to make them available to all, we try keep them at a very low cost (if not free) for participants. This makes it hard to support the people who are putting it all together! Some of your donations would help relieve the cost of event space and workshop materials, allowing us to keep these trainings going strong.
Read the in-depth testimonials below:
Working with Rabbi Lerner and Cat Zavis around how to talk about Israel-Palestine was such a transformative experience and, frankly, such a relief. After weeks of deeply unproductive “conversations” (aka yelling/shaming matches) with people on all sides of the issue, I had given up on talking about it at all. I’ve been through this cycle of anger, outrage, despair and numbing countless times before, with each emergent crisis in Israel-Palestine. I love that place and I love both peoples and I so desperately want them to make peace with one another – not just for their sakes but for the planet’s sake – and getting into heated arguments with people on facebook, not surprisingly, isn’t really helping the cause. That’s why working with Cat and Rabbi Lerner was such a breath of fresh air. Learning from Cat about empathic communication and getting a chance to role-play with one another gave me a whole new sense of how I might engage with people on the heart-level, even about this touchy-in-the-extreme subject. Rabbi Lerner brings a deep and deeply compassionate understanding to the narratives of both people’s, underscoring their separate and intersecting traumas in a way that gives us permission to love the whole bunch of them, which we are going to need to do if we want to bring this catastrophic mess to an end. I say “we” because as Americans, and in my case as an American Jew, we have a responsibility to change American foreign policy in the region; to do that, we must be able to talk to people, including people who disagree with us, people who slightly disagree with us, people in our families and communities, and especially people in government and in the media. Getting hysterical and/or giving up completely are not options for those of us who give a damn and are invested in peace and justice–so we have to learn how to talk about it. I promise you there is no better place to learn how to do this than with Michael and Cat. You will not be disappointed.
–Deb Kory
“It was a powerful, life changing workshop yesterday. I am guilty of trying to change the other person’s mind all the time!”
–Maram Bata ,Muslim member of the Contra Costa Interfaith Women’s Group
“Thanks for providing this helpful and informative training. I noticed a shift in my responses right away; more able to hear through a potentially triggering comment to empathy and compassion. I appreciate all the tools you offered.”
–Renna Ulvang
If you still have yet to donate, please click here to do so (donations are tax-deductible since we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit).
You can also send a check to: Tikkun, 2342 Shattuck Ave. #1200, Berkeley, CA 94704
Or donate by phone: 510-644-1200
If you are unemployed right now, please save your money and instead help spread the word that we exist. We’d be so grateful if you would urge your friends, coworkers, and family to sign up for the free Tikkun Daily email digest.
Also, you can support our work by buying an ad on Tikkun Daily! Rotating ads on this site cost just $100 per month and they are prominently displayed on the home page of the blog. Advertisers can contact ads@tikkun.org.