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EDITORIALS
Get Money Out of Politics
MICHAEL LERNER
Even if we overturn Citizens United, donations from the rich will continue to distort our democracy. That’s why we need an Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment (ESRA) to ban all private money in politics!
How Do We Get Money Out of Politics?
DAVID COBB, PETER GABEL, HARRIET FRAAD, AMORY STARR, AND MICHAEL LERNER
Responding to Rabbi Lerner’s editorial, “Get Money Out of Politics,” roundtable participants discuss whether it is more strategic to focus on a narrower amendment to overturn Citizen’s United or to aim higher.
POLITICS & SOCIETY
Co-ops: A Good Alternative?
LITA KURTH
Co-ops run the gamut from cartel-style corporations to exciting grassroots initiatives. What makes some better able to stay true to their ideals?
SPECIAL SECTION: JUSTICE IN THE CITY
Justice in the City
ARYEH COHEN
Rabbinic Judaism holds residents of a city responsible for the well-being of every stranger who passes through it. To meet this obligation today would require radical social transformation.
Islamic Law and the Boundaries of Social Responsibility
RUMEE AHMED
Medieval rural Muslim jurists called on citizens to personally accompany strangers in need, but urban jurists assumed a different model: care mediated through a welfare state. Let’s draw wisdom from both.
We Are One Body: A Christian Perspective on Justice In the City
ALEXANDRA SALVATIERRA
Paul the apostle taught that the people in a society are like the members of one body. What would it mean for us to take that idea seriously?
Beyond the Limits of Love: Building the Religious Counterculture
ANA LEVY-LYONS
Liberal congregations’ rejection of mandated practices has depoliticized religious life. Let’s rediscover a theology of love and obligation.
Healing the Miser Within: The Kabbalah of Giving and Receiving
ESTELLE FRANKEL
The euphoria of giving offers a spiritual high—and a newfound capacity for love and wonder.
Community Reparations to Transform Community Desolation
LISA “TINY” GRAY-GARCIA
The rabbinic ideal of “accompaniment” is inspiring. Here’s how people with privilege can step beyond their comfort zones and put it into practice.
Trauma as a Potential Source of Solidarity
JILL GOLDBERG
Sometimes trauma opens us to new forms of kinship across class and social divisions.
Searching for Solidarity in an Atomized Society
PETER LAARMAN
To resist the selfish ethos of capitalism, we need a counterculture of generosity, compassion, truth-telling, and joy.
Online Exclusives
Don’t miss the two online-only articles associated with this special section on Justice in the Society: lively contributions from Bernadette Brooten and Jill Jacobs. To read them, click here.
RETHINKING RELIGION
A Spirituality of the Commons: Where Religion and Marxism Meet
BRIGITTE KAHL AND JAN REHMANN
Marx was not anti-religious in the way most people think. It’s time for U.S. leftists and people of faith to co-create a liberationist spirituality.
The Path of the Parent: How Children Can Enrich Your Spiritual Life
STEVEN TAYLOR
Heaven is the state of wonder that happy children exist in. In their company, we can reenter that kingdom.
CULTURE
The Sudden Angel Affrighted Me: God Wrestling in Denise Levertov’s Life and Art
by David Shaddock
BOOKS
A Poet’s Meditation on Force
Army Cats by Tom Sleigh | Review by David Wojahn
New Poems in an Ancient Language
Approaching You In English by Admiel Kosman | Review by David Danoff
The Magic of Organizing
The Inquisitor’s Apprentice by Chris Moriarty | Review by David Belden
POETRY
Morning Blessings by David Shaddock
An Alphabet by Paul Breslin
TIKKUN RECCOMENDS
Nicaragua: Surviving the Legacy of U.S. Policy Photography by Paul Dix, Edited by Pamela Fitzpatrick
India: A Sacred Geography by Diana L. Eck
Two Reinterpretations of Torah by Maurice Harris and Robert Rosenthal
Red Letter Revolution by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo
Three Views on Israel/Palestine by Phyllis Goldstein, Breaking the Silence, and Brant Rosen