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EDITORIALS
Settler Judaism: The Destructive Idol Worship of Our Time
MICHAEL LERNER
What would be the Ten Commandments of the pro-Israel Judaism used to justify the summer 2014 attacks on Gaza? Our imagined version of their new idolatry contrasts with the Judaism of Love and Generosity we promote.
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POLITICS & SOCIETY
Silencing Dissent: How Biased Civil Rights Policies Stifle Dialogue on Israel
CHIP BERLET AND MARIA PLANANSKY
Packed with right-wing demagogues, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has started using its authority to suppress legitimate criticisms of Israel.
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RETHINKING RELIGION
A New Take on the First Commandment: Building the Religious Counterculture
ANA LEVY-LYONS
If we worship anything, it should be the power of liberation. The first commandment warns us away from wealth, status, and other false gods.
Between Paradigm Shift Judaism and Neo-Hasidism: The New Metaphysics of Jewish Renewal
SHAUL MAGID
Led by Reb Zalman, the Jewish Renewal movement ushered in a new Aquarian Age of Judaism. To make it stick, we need to talk metaphysics. Plus: a response by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (z”l) written in the last days of his life gives insight into how our great teacher saw his life’s work. Yotam Schachter continues the conversation on the axial age of Jewish Renewal in an elaboration on his father’s response.
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SPECIAL SECTION: JUBILEE & DEBT ABOLITION
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Jubilee and Debt Abolition: An Introduction
What would it mean to take seriously the Torah’s call for the cancellation of all debts and the equal redistribution of property every fifty years?
Sabbatical Year and Jubilee in Twenty-First-Century America
MICHAEL LERNER
A campaign to reinstitute the Sabbatical Year and Jubilee in industrial societies could fundamentally transform the global capitalist system.
Adapting Ancient Ethical Principles in Modern Times
DAVID KORTEN
How might we update the Bible’s call for the periodic redistribution of wealth? Could we use estate taxes to create a trust fund for every child?
Jubilee on Wall Street: Taking the Bull by the Horns
SHANE CLAIBORNE
Jubilee was God’s alternative to empire, to Wall Street, and to the patterns of injustice. Let’s commit wild and joyful acts of Jubilee every day.
Reimagining Jubilee: A Political Horizon for Our Times
PAMELA BROWN
Economic forms of Jim Crow continue to exist throughout the credit industry today. A modern call for Jubilee would seek to level the racial playing field.
You Are Not a Loan: Strike Debt and the Emerging Debtors Movement
HANNAH APPEL
Millions of Americans incur debt to pay for basic needs. To escape this trap, we must “come out” as debtors and start experiencing our debts collectively.
Power Without the King: The Debt Strike as Credible Threat
PAUL HAMPTON
If we want to abolish debt, we’ll have to do it ourselves. If debtors refuse to pay, our debts cease being our problem—they become the bank’s problem!
Buddhism and Debt
ALEX CARING-LOBEL
What resources does Buddhism offer toward Jubilee? To achieve the Buddhist goal of release from karmic debt, we must annul economic debt.
A Religious Movement to End Predatory Payday Lending
RACHEL HOPE ANDERSON
Interfaith coalitions have much to offer in the fight against abusive loans.
Transcending Market Logic: Envisioning a Global Gift Economy
GENEVIEVE VAUGHAN
The act of mothering shatters the market-based expectation of equal exchange. Building on that model, let’s build a global gift economy.
Debt Forgiveness: Who Owes Whom for What?
NANCY HOLMSTROM
Most debtors have committed no wrongs, so what is called for is liberation—not forgiveness. The colossal, valid debt that remains is climate debt.
Building an International Bank for Right Livelihood
JOEL MAGNUSON
It’s time to create an alternative to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund—a global bank that prioritizes sustainability, not growth.
Embracing the Radical Economics of the Bible
MARCUS BORG
The spirit of the Jubilee laws is clear and relevant: to prevent the emergence of a permanently impoverished underclass.
Online Exclusives
Visit our online exclusives page to read the powerful web exclusives associated with this issue, including contributions from Murali Balaji, Susmita Barua, Alan Michael Collinge, Fletcher Harper, Hazel Henderson, Norman Solomon, and Susan Wilcox.
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CULTURE
BOOKS
The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry edited by Deborah Ager and M.E. Silverman | Review by David Danoff
The Road to Emmaus by Spencer Reece | Review by Katie Herman
Transcending Economic Dualities
Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons by David Bollier | Review by Miki Kashtan
To Mourn a Child: Jewish Responses to Neonatal and Childhood Death edited by Jeffrey Saks and Joel Wolowelsky and Kaddish: Women’s Voices edited by Michal Smart and Barbara Ashkenas | Review by Erica Brown
Embracing Change: Forgotten Traditions Within Sephardic Judaism
Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East by Zvi Zohar | Review by Tzvi Marx
POETRY
Demitasse by Phillis Levin
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TIKKUN RECOMMENDS
Restructuring Global Economics
Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World by Michael Edwards, The Just Market by Jonathan Brandow, We Make the Road by Walking by Brian D. McLaren
Poems for the High Holiday Season
The Days Between by Marcia Falk
Hope in Palestine/Israel
Absolution : A Palestinian Israeli Love Story by R.F. Georgy, The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust by Noam Chayut
Romance in the Torah
The Books of Jonathan: Four Men, One God by Gary Levinson
Colonial Dynamics in the Middle East
Inside Syria by Reese Erlich, The Darker Side of Western Modernity by Walter D. Mignolo
Interesting article by Berlet and Planansky. Things may be different in the USA, but in Australia it is the BDS movement which is shrill, aggressive and intolerant, and utilizes abuse and intimidation in an attempt to silence the views of many on the Left who do not share its extremist views. Dr Philip Mendes, co-author of Boycotting Israel is Wrong: The progressive path to peace between Palestinians and Israelis, New South Press, May 2015.