Politics & Society
Tikkun’s vision is that we can create a caring society. What if our goal as political and social activists were both an equal society, in terms of wealth, rights, and power, and also an empathic society, where we cared about each other’s well-being? That would change the way we do politics. See our Core Vision. Please note that the articles we publish reflect a wider range of opinion and sometimes include ones arguing against our editorial positions.
Christianity
The Religious Roots of the Minimum Wage
by Jonathan Zimmerman
Will raising the minimum wage put more money in the pockets of America’s working poor? Or will it have the opposite effect, throwing more poor people out of work? That’s the question we ask whenever anyone proposes a hike in the minimum wage, as President Obama did in his State of the Union Address. But it’s also the wrong question, diverting us from the biggest one of all: what are the rights that we share as human beings?
Read more >>
Judaism
A City Where Justice Dwells
by Jill Jacobs
Place matters. Even in this globalized, Internet era, I believe in making long-term commitments to specific places, and especially to the places where we live. Our communal social justice efforts should begin by choosing the places where we will make an impact.
Read more >>
Gender & Sexuality
Overcoming the Sexual and Religious Legacies of Slavery
by Bernadette Brooten
Because of the U.S. history of slavery, assumptions about the sexuality of African American women in the United States differ from those made about European American women. The sexual stereotype of enslaved women as licentious extends far back into history; modern racism extended it to all Black women and also used the myth of Black hypersexuality as a reason to enslave Black people.
Read more >>
Education
How the Online Revolution in Higher Education Will Eliminate Faculty Jobs
by C. A. Bowers
The world of higher education seems poised to enter a period of stark change: the onset of mass online education. Awash with excitement over this development, too many pundits are failing to discuss the cultural and ecological problems that the Internet revolution exacerbates.
Read more >>
Environmental Activism
Co-ops: A Good Alternative?
by Lita Kurth
Historically, the co-op model has offered a workplace theory far superior to capitalism. Not driven by the profit motive, co-ops ought to be worker-empowering, democratic, healthier, less expensive, and more responsive to employee and community needs— valuable traits during this period of capitalist meltdown.
Read more >>
Democracy
How Do We Get Money Out of Politics?
by Tikkun Staff
Michael Lerner's editorial is too critical of the Move to Amend Movement, when what is needed is strong support for it, while recognizing its limitations. In some circumstances a reform effort can be very close to a full embracing of the ideals.
Read more >>
US Politics
Inciting Violence in This Culture of Violence
by Phil Wolfson
The massacre of the Sandy Hook schoolchildren last month offered yet another painful proof that the creation of violent minds is big business and that, in its many aspects, the business of violence has become a far too accepted part of the fabric of contemporary life in the United States.
Read more >>
Democracy
Get Money Out of Politics
by Michael Lerner
Why should we be surprised if tens of millions of potential voters do not show up at polls? They’ve already seen that it is not they but the rich who will shape the ideas of candidates in both major political parties. It’s not that donors get absolute power to shape the votes and policies of each elected official, but that together as a group those donors shape a universe of discourse about what is plausible in politics and what is “realistic”; within that framework, politicians make choices that may at times offend one section of their donor base in order to please another section.
Read more >>
Spiritual Politics
Searching for Solidarity in an Atomized Society
by Peter Laarman
We desperately need to build up an ethic of accompaniment. But we must do it while consciously understanding ourselves to be operating in a profoundly countercultural context.
Read more >>
Politics & Society
Trauma as a Potential Source of Solidarity
by Jill Goldberg
Every city has its neglected corners, filled with people who need much more than a spontaneous moment of generosity and the handing out of some spare quarters. Like Cohen, I believe that we must witness the experience of the Other and “assimilate Other into same”—to actually identify aspects of ourselves in those we might normally ignore or disdain.
Read more >>
