Healing Israel/Palestine

Upcoming Conference Call with Sami Awad and Recommended Articles

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UPCOMING CONFERENCE CALL
Monday, August 4th — 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT
Sami Awad will be speaking to us from Palestine on the Israel/Gaza War. Sami Awad is the Executive Director of Holy Land Trust (HLT), a Palestinian non-profit organization which he founded in 1998 in Bethlehem. HLT works with the Palestinian community at both the grassroots and leadership levels in developing nonviolent approaches that aim to end the Israeli occupation and build a future founded on the principles of nonviolence, equality, justice, and peaceful coexistence. Sami Awad will call in from Bethlehem, Palestine and will be joined by Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cat Zavis (executive director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives). Conference Call Number: 1-267-507-0240
Conference Code: 241099
Please Note: This Call is for or NSP–Network of Spiritual Progressives currently paid-up members, Tikkun subscribers and Beyt Tikkun members.

General News

The Solution to Middle East Chaos

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Gaza, Syria, and Iraq are pained by that same disease of extremism and conflict. Civilians, more specifically children and women, are bearing the brunt of the injustices. In today’s Middle East, we have sacrificed a generation to the flames of rage.

Empathy

Where are our Cities of Refuge?

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This week’s Torah stories remind us of those six Biblical ‘cities of refuge’ -places where anyone could go and seek shelter, protection from bloodshed or vengeance. But in reality there are no places of refuge. The Torah is like a dream. And then we awaken from it – and the nightmare is that there is nowhere safe from death’s sudden arrival, however guilty or innocent one might be.

Healing Israel/Palestine

The Real Danger to Israel

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People under occupation have a right to resist and fight back. Whether or not one condemns or approves of Hamas’s rocket fire, one thing is clear: Israel is not really defending itself from rockets, it is instead defending its self-declared right to swallow up more and more Palestinian land and empty it of more and more Palestinians.

General News

Letter to My Community: How I'm Pro-Israel

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One either stands unequivocally by Israel’s actions, or stands in opposition to Israel. There is no in-between. And it is in that liminal space is where David Harris-Gershon and many others stand, a space that stands separated from the community…And that is saddening. One author’s investment in Israel compels him to critique its geopolitical policies.

Culture

Israel, Palestine, and Us: The Peace That Passeth All Understanding

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Facebook has been a forest of assertions and denunciations this week. Maybe it’s the company I keep, but almost everyone is posting links at an accelerated rate, and the subject of this battle of citations is Israel-Palestine. I spent a remarkable amount of time reading blogs and essays, but still, I was able to consume only a fraction of this material. The volume was such that I could have begun reading each morning, pausing only to sleep, then rolled out of bed and continued till bedtime the next day. The vast majority of posts came from people who, like me, live thousands of miles from the Mideast and, like me, have almost no direct knowledge of the situation.