Politics & Society

Tikkun Sponsors Nonviolent Demonstration

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Beyt Tikkun Synagogue and  Tikkun magazine will convene a non-violent family-friendly anti-Nazi rally on Saturday, the day before t​he Nazis are coming to Berkeley and at the same place they are planning to hold their event (the Berkeley Civic Center Park, Martin Luther King Jr. ave in Berkeley between Center Street and Allston Way, Saturday August 26th at 3 p.m.​ Many people want to protest the Nazis, but many want to avoid the potential violence on Sunday, so we have set up a nonviolent event for Saturday. We will do an abbreviated Mincha service (mostly in English)​, sing songs of freedom and tikkun olam, and we will have a few speakers including the mayor of Berkeley. Would you please help us inform everyone on your social media lists and your persona email lists since some of them have friends who live in the Bay Area and we very much want them to come and participate in this event which will focus on saying NO to Racism and Anti-Semitism and YES to world of justice, compassion and love for all of humanity and for the Earth! The event is cosponsored by the Pacific School of Religion and it is meant to be both Jewish and interfaith. And wherever you live, consider using this model for how to protest the Nazis without risking violence. ​Tikkun is proud to have taken the leadership in making this kind of nonviolent event happen.

Culture

Oh Crap! I’m Triggered Again, Part One

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Holding steady when the ground is moving is normally part of my stock-in-trade.People often ask me for something to help put their own fears into perspective. Usually I am willing and able to oblige. Mostly I try my best to see the bigger picture, and mostly that effort pays off. But not now. I was staying more or less centered until a few days ago when something caught me off-guard. In the middle of a conference call, I got a text message carrying information that turned out not to be true, that the Barcelona terrorist who mowed down 13 lives like grass had been heading for a kosher restaurant on Las Ramblas, hard by the assassin’s abandoned car.

Culture

Charlottesville and Thuringia

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The sirens and shouted curses from Charlottesville resounded all too audibly even here in far-off Germany. Little imagination was required; how well we know such brutal faces, twisted with hatred, the racist epithets and threats!

Politics & Society

Getting Away with It

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Today, once again, our government is careening into the land of lies, restricting and deporting immigrants, threatening cities that offer sanctuary, making bellicose threats and giving up principles of responsibility and leadership.

Politics & Society

The Forest That Overwhelms Trump Tower

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It always starts with the vulnerability of risking arrest. The activism is the purest citizenship. We enter Trump Tower. We walk through the submachine guns and dogs, the body armor and the golden name of the white supremacist president that hovers in space above the door.

General News

Games of Thrones and #NoConfederate

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First, I must confess that I am a Game of Thrones fan. To be more precise, I am a Tyrion Lannister fan as interpreted by Peter Dinklage. I continued to watch Game of Thrones after the first episode primarily because I was fascinated by Tyrion. I love his wit and his joy of life. As the series progressed, I started to love his cunning, his morality, and his willingness to walk away from everything and to return again when he thought he could serve a leader who would be good for the people of the Seven Kingdoms.
I was and remain at once enthralled and deeply dismayed by the imagination of George R.R. Martin in the books and by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss in the television series.