Culture

Building a Progressive Spiritual Movement

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The Crow Tribe in Montana, not unlike many other Native American communities, inner cities, and rural towns in America, does not have adequate housing, jobs, or educational opportunities. But unlike inner cities and rural towns, what the Crow Tribe does have is its own land. And the Crow Tribe’s land happens to have a lot of coal—9 billion tons of it to be exact. The tribe planning to develop a new coal mine on its land. They have contracted with Cloud Peak energy to extract coal from their land. Not all Crow Tribe members support this unusual partnership. But all agree that the Tribe is struggling to provide the services its community members need and this seems to offer one avenue of hope and possibility.

General News

Two Events One Hope

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Two political events happened this week that made deep connections in my mind, even though they happened continents apart. It’s funny how sometimes the most disparate things make us think philosophical thoughts that interconnect in the most important ways. Event # 1: Donald Trump gets handed the Republican nominee on a silver platter. I know… who in the world expected this?

Culture

Trump: The 2016 Election and the Rise of American Fascism

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American fascism is on the rise under the Trump banner. At first flush this claim may seem exaggerated, because there are no visible swastikas and no head-bashing armed storm troopers, and Trump uses none of Hitler’s hyperventilating antics. But what Trump and Hitler have in common is their approach to politics, which is/was radically new and geared to contemporary problems and uncertainties. The newness in both cases gave these two fascist movements added power at the onset.

Culture

Passover, Parenting and Pardons

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This year, I have exhausted Passover’s eight days writing love letters to President Obama. My letters all close with the same refrain: “Let my clients GO!” Is it a prophecy that Passover’s final day – April 30 – coincides with our clemency deadline?
In 2014 the Justice Department announced an Obama initiative to invite inmates with no significant criminal history, a record of good prison conduct, no history of violence before or during the term of incarceration, who have served over ten years on a federal sentence for a non-violent offense to apply for clemency.

art

Let Them Talk: The Piano Prince

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If I asked you to name a prodigiously talented, extravagantly flamboyant, African American, sexually fluid musician with a body like an exclamation point and a taste for the rococo whose premature death left the world a little grayer, of course you’d say “Prince,”and you’d be right. Or half-right.
Every since Prince’s April 21st death was reported – ever since a tidal wave of mourning began to gather force, leaving testimonies and tributes and tall tales in its wake – I’ve been thinking surfing the Zeitgeist, thinking about James Booker.

General News

Dissent and Dissension: Approaching Ultra-Orthodoxy

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The program called for an all-day conference, culminating with a keynote address by author Nathan Englander, but my calendar said that I could just squeeze in a noon panel on “The Body and Selfhood: Gender, Identity and Ultra-Orthodoxy.” The panel was moderated by Lani Santo, the Executive Director of Footsteps, the only organization in North America that assists people who wish to leave the ultra-Orthodox community. The panel especially interested me because I had wrestled with that subject for more than two decades and had not come up with any conclusive answers.

Environment

Threats to Mother Earth and How to Confront Them

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There are four threats that our Common Home faces, and which demand from us our special attention. The first is how in modern times the Earth is viewed as an object of ruthless exploitation, seeking only the greatest profits, without regard to life or purpose. This vision, that has brought undeniable benefits, has also created a dis-equilibrium in all the ecosystems, which has caused the present generalized ecological crisis. With that vision entire nations were destroyed, as in Latin America, where the Atlantic jungles, and, in part, the Amazon rain forests, have been devastated. In January 2015, 18 scientists published in the well known magazine Science, a study on   “The planetary limits: a guide for a human development on a planet in mutation”. They enumerated 9 fundamental aspects for the continuity of life. Among them were climate equilibrium, maintenance of bio-diversity, preservation of the ozone layer, and control of acidity of the oceans.

Culture

A Love Letter To Our Community

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We were raised to believe that Israel was a utopia and solely a victim and it was our duty as diaspora Jews to protect and defend the state. Then we learned a more complicated tale, a tale that included the horror and daily nightmare of the occupation for Palestinians. That’s when the heartbreak began. We felt betrayed by the American Jewish community, and we felt that everything we had learned about repairing the world came into contradiction with the community’s support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Our hearts broke and it was hard to look at you. It was hard to believe that you would support a state without question that contributed to the suffering of the Palestinian people. It was hard to believe you could do such a thing. Through our community’s history of trauma and persecution, could we really be the perpetrators of oppression ourselves?

General News

Prince

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There are not many singers whose songs captivate the imaginations of both me and my children. When we play Prince in the car, both my son and I sing along. The only time I saw Prince live in concert was with my daughter and her father. Prince broke down generational barriers with the power of his musical truth. His was a life and artistry of radical love.