General News

Rabbi Michael Lerner: A Quarter Century Devoted to Repairing the World

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Today Truthout has done that rather unusual thing: given a leader of the religious left a lot of space to tell their story. As that’s the Tikkun story, as told by Rabbi Michael Lerner, I am particularly happy about it. Asked what Tikkun’s successes and failures have been, Michael responded in part:
Our greatest achievement has been to legitimate – in the Jewish world and increasingly in liberal and progressive circles – the idea that there should be a middle path that involves support for both Israel and Palestine and critique of both Israel and Palestine. That critique must include the way both peoples are responsible for the current mess, at the same time recognizing the vast disproportion in power and Israel’s consequent preponderant responsibility to create a politically and economically viable Palestinian state. This position has earned Tikkun a reputation in the Jewish world establishment as self-hating, etcetera, even though we support the existence of the state of Israel and see this as the best way for Israel to embody its own values.

General News

Our Thanks To All On Our 25th Anniversary

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A San Francisco Bay Area web magazine editor called me this morning to offer congratulations on Tikkun’s 25th Anniversary, and also on my letter to the editor about it that she saw published in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning (below). Before Jo Ellen Kaiser edited Zeek she was the longest serving editor at Tikkun, so I said she deserved the congratulations more than I did. Indeed all of our past staff are included in our gratitude today. And all those who have written for us. You may not realize that no one who writes in Tikkun gets paid: that’s nothing we are proud of, in fact we are ashamed to say it and wish that we knew how to be a better-funded organization; but still we are amazed and filled with gratitude that so many people do want to write for Tikkun out of passion, love and whatever other reasons.

General News

Our Beautiful New Website

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For the last six months we have been designing and constructing a new website for Tikkun magazine and it went live late on Saturday night. Do check it out here and through the “Tikkun Main Site” link above. In his Welcome to Our New Website Michael Lerner writes:
Tikkun magazine is a voice for all who seek to build what we call the “Caring Society – caring for each other, caring for the earth.” We are a voice for all who refuse to accept that environmental destruction, wars, poverty, oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, hatred or fear of Jews, or despair are inevitable. We are the voice of those who refuse to be “realistic” and who instead are engaged in the struggle (a long-term struggle to be sure) to build a world of love and kindness; generosity; compassion; repentance and forgiveness; ethical and ecological sensitivity and responsibility; and awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe.

Culture

Pinkwashing, NYC Style: The LGBT Center Caves to Pressure

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Watching NYC’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Center succumb to pressure to cancel a kick-off party for Israeli Apartheid Week, I feel compelled to write an epilogue to my recent post on Pinkwashing. I am reminded once again that we must be vigilant in refusing to allow queer liberation to be pitted against Palestinian liberation because as we know from our queer Palestinian colleagues, the two struggles are intertwined. On February 22nd, Michael Lucas, a right wing Advocate columnist and gay porn entrepreneur, issued a press release calling on the LGBT center to cancel the scheduled “Party to End Apartheid,” which he called anti-Semitic. He threatened to “organize a boycott that would certainly involve some of the Center’s most generous donors.” Infamous for his attacks against Islam, Lucas argued that “Israel is the only country in the Middle East that supports gay rights while its enemies round up, torture, and condemn gay people to death…”

General News

Universal Human Rights vs. the Plutocracy

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The meaning and the importance of human rights is justice. It is the justice that is necessary for human dignity and for peace. If a democratic republic is to serve the interests of its entire people, it is imperative that the demos, the ordinary people, stand in solidarity with each other and insist upon their universal human rights.

General News

The People, My People: Who Are They?

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Friends in Wisconsin have been daily attending the Madison demonstrations for the right of union workers to bargain collectively. They report spirited and witty placards: “The People’s Republic of Curdistan” for Wisconsin’s infamous snack food. People who were activists since the sixties and whose parents and grandparents fought for the right of unions to exist have been hailing each other via email and doubtless more sophisticated social media: All power to the people! Popular revolution is clearly catching, as people from one Middle Eastern nation after another throng their public squares. The placards in Madison include “Walk like an Egyptian.”

General News

Tikkun's 25th Anniversary Bash

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The Spring 2011 issue of Tikkun is in the mail now to subscribers. Here’s the top half of the back cover:

Michael Lerner always puts on terrific events and this will be no exception. We will hear from each of the honorees above, as well as from Michael and Peter Gabel, who has guided Tikkun with Michael from the start. There will be energizing and spiritually deep music in between speeches. So if you can hop a plane, car or bike and come along, don’t miss it!

General News

The Perils of Privilege

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The Perils of Privilege
At the college where I teach, I get free parking: prime spots right on the edge of campus. Should my designated places fill up, I can help myself to any student space. Nice deal. For me. How is student parking?

General News

Where's the Heat? Rio Arribans Grill NM Gov Over Gas

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For most of the country, last week’s winter storm is old news. But for residents of Rio Arriba County, one of the nation’s top gas-producing counties, last week’s storm has not passed. Residents of Rio Arriba County remain without natural gas for cooking and heating in frigid weather nearly a week later. And another Arctic front is on its way. Last night, the Board of Rio Arriba County Commissioners summoned Governor Susana Martinez to explain the debacle.