Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/118/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
“Tisha b’Av is a holiday about adding to the heap whatever calamity Jews have most recently experienced. The profound insight of Eicha, Lamentations, and the rabbis of the Talmud, is to understand our calamities by focusing not our attackers or their moral status, but on our own moral failures.”
“The settlement system of the West Bank is so interwoven into the fabric of Israel…that it is no longer feasible to imagine a separation that would enable the establishment of a territorially and economically viable Palestinian state.”
In the Torah, Joseph was known as a prophet predicting seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine in Egypt. Today’s Josephs, our modern-day prophets, are climate scientists predicting the fate that awaits us from climate change. While the predictions are clear, why are we not heeding our Josephs’ advice? Our denial stands in the way, but we have the power to change that.
“Whether out of defensiveness, envy, or ignorance, some women support and even add to the inequities that continue to plague their gender, even in relatively free societies. So what can be done about it?”
ISIS is waging a genocidal war against the Yazidis, a religious minority who are seen as ungodly. Anouar Majid calls on Muslims to dissent and question the approach that ISIS takes to theology.
Palestinians’ accounts of the destruction in one of the hardest hit neighborhoods in Gaza.
President Obama has ordered airstrikes against the non-state actor the Islamic State (IS) a.k.a. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) a.k.a. the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He has also ordered an airlift of food, water and medicine to Iraqi religious minorities who have fled their homes and who are now living on Mt. Sinjar. IS, a ruthless militant organization, has fought its way through Iraq with surprising speed and, as I write this, is only a few miles outside of Erbil, a major city in the Kurdish region of Iraq and where a US consulate is. In his weekly address, President Obama said that the broad strategic goals of the US military operations in Iraq are to protect US citizens in Erbil, address the humanitarian crisis, prevent Iraq from becoming a safe haven for terrorists, and to urge Iraqis to reconcile, unify, and defend their country.
David Harris-Gershon offers a reflection on why he chooses to speak openly about Israel and Palestine, despite the negativity received.
Israel’s occupation of Palestine and decades of conflict has caused Israeli society to grow numb to Palestinian suffering.
When I think of most of my Jewish friends or the people I see at shul, I would be reluctant to voice my deep reservations about [Israel’s] justifications. On the other hand, I feel guilty even repeating them privately to myself. It feels like an act of treachery against my Arab friends.