Flickr / David_Shankbone

by Donna Schaper

Older people want to know what is next. Turns out they’re the impatient ones. Younger people don’t want to go there – they trust the process.

Everyone’s got a point. Old folks worry that without a plan, without a program, this glorious fragile beginning will remain just that. When Mayor Bloomberg gets annoyed, he’ll shut it down, we worry. If there’s a confrontation with the cops because folks get grumpy, they will shut it down. Or if the weather gets really, really bad, THAT will shut it down.

Younger people know that their tactics have sparked a movement. They figured out how to have public conversations without microphones. They’ve organized Zuccotti Park better than any of my children ever organized their rooms. They have a growing kitchen of good food, well distributed. They have also managed the sanitation problem and the recycling problem with creativity and élan. They meet ridicule with smiles and increasingly creative signs. They created a slogan – “We’re the 99%” – that is inspiring millions of older folks.

They’re the ones who created the center of gravity, and the world – the media, the unions, the politicians, the clergy – has come into THEIR orbit, not the other way around. They’ve changed the conversation of the rest of us – New York Times columnists, a Presidential news conference, countless personal interactions across the country. We haven’t changed theirs. So they worry a whole lot less. You can hear them saying, “Relax, Mom and Dad – it’s going to be all right.”

It wasn’t until people saw a police officer macing a defenseless woman locked in a cage that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests began to garner attention from the establishment media. When widespread shock at such an egregious act made ignoring OWS impossible, the establishment media tried denigrating it; painting the participants with broad brushstrokes from the pallet of tired, “Woodstock”-era clichés. After union workers and airline pilots began showing up in front of the Cathedrals of Wall Street Criminality, it got harder to disparage OWS through lazy references to bongos and granola.

The loose, leaderless organizational structure, as well as the lack of clearly-defined demands, earned OWS sneers from the establishment media. NPR summarized their early disinterest in OWS by stating “the recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective.” Why would NPR, or the entire media establishment, feel otherwise given the their fetishistic reverence for the soundbite format?

Though it doesn’t contribute to the kind of “great disruptions” that would spice things up for NPR, OWS’s continued practice of nonviolence has from the outset been instrumental in attracting the imaginations of participants and sympathizers. Actually, most things that have confused the media and the authorities about OWS have in fact given it strength, and provide hope that the movement will continue to grow. Occupy Wall Street is not a protest, in the words of Matt Zoller, it is “a Church of Dissent.” Rather than be constrained by adhering to a message, the Occupations are growing precisely because they are a space to articulate a profound dissatisfaction with the status quo.

This dissatisfaction is nothing if not justified — and most Americans understand on some level that there are deep-rooted, systemic problems that are negatively affecting almost all of us while a tiny sliver are enriched to an unfathomable degree. Glenn Greenwald dismissed the notion that the aims of OWS were too nebulous:

Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power – in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions – is destroying financial security for everyone else?

Although I shouldn’t be surprised, I have to say that I do find myself angered and appalled by a reaction that has recently emerged in opposition to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, a reaction by working people who claim to speak for “the 53%.”

This is a guest post by Jason A. Kerr, a doctoral candidate in English at Boston College. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On 7 October, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, was speaking to reporters outside the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC, where he had just introduced Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. Taking aim at Perry’s rival for the nomination, Mitt Romney, Jeffress said that Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “is not a Christian.” Jeffress went on to say, “This idea that Mormonism is a theological cult is not news…. That has been the historical position of Christianity for a long time.”

Jeffress has a point: evangelicals have long been uncomfortable with Mormonism, and significant theological differences – most notably over Christology – exist between the two groups. I’m not going to attempt to resolve those differences here, or to defend the proposition that Mormons are in fact Christian (even though I, as a Mormon, affirm my own faith in Christ).

Rather, I wish to seize on an opportunity inadvertently opened by Jeffress’s overly broad invocation of “the historical position of Christianity” to argue that Mormons and Baptists ought to make common cause in opposing the use of such appeals as tests of religious orthodoxy, let alone as de facto religious tests of fitness for political office.

Here’s the thing: “the historical position of Christianity” hasn’t always been kind to Baptists, either. In 1640s London, for instance, Baptist congregations found themselves altogether on the margins. Adherence to the doctrine of believer’s baptism put them at odds with the longstanding practice of baptizing infants, and their belief that church membership depended on such baptism meant separation from the established Church of England. Thus, Baptist gatherings were illegal, and entire congregations occasionally found themselves in prison. With the outbreak of civil war in 1642, enforcement broke down, and some churches began to meet more openly. For instance, a congregation led by Thomas Lambe held meetings in Bell Alley, Coleman Street that were open to the public and drew huge crowds.

On Saturday, over 1,000 Jews gathered for Occupy Yom Kippur in New York City – for a Kol Nidre service held near Zuccotti Park in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street that was simultaneously subversive and transformational.

Occupy Sukkot - raising our fists with a lulav. Graphic by Daniel Sieradski.

That moment, sparked by media entrepreneur and activist Daniel Sieradski, has given birth to a burgeoning expansion of Occupy Wall Street participation within the Jewish community that is quickly coming to be known as Occupy Judaism thanks, in large part, to the grassroots marketing work of Sieradski.

And the next initiative? Occupy Sukkot.

Already, activists in six cities are preparing to construct a sukkah as part of their local occupation protest, and have created Facebook pages to announce such construction: New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C. However, it is the first one, being organized by Sieradski and a host of social-justice-minded Jews of multiple stripes in New York, that is most-visibly providing a real-time example of the intersect currently occurring between Jewish activism and civil disobedience. Sieradski writes of the pop-up sukkah activists plan to construct this afternoon:

This is a protest action. We do not have a permit for our sukkah. We expect confrontation with the NYPD and cannot guarantee our sukkah will stay standing all week. We have received generous guidance from NYC Council member Brad Lander as to permit regulations, however we cannot promise that the police will accept our arguments and allow the sukkah to stay standing. We therefore need volunteers to be present all week long, around the clock, to help us ensure our sukkah stays up and to document any potential physical encounters with the police.

There is currently a strongly-enforced rule against building structures in Zuccotti park. We are working with the organizers at Occupy Wall Street to ensure that this protest builds the larger movement. We will use consensus to adapt and respond to challenges from the NYPD as necessary, and we will work to ensure that our protest does not put others at Occupy Wall Street at greater risk.

Courtesy of Stand with the Eleven

by Jewish Voice for Peace Members Amirah Mizrahi, Antonia House, and Emily Ratner

When Jewish Voice for Peace disrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s keynote speech at the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual general meeting last November in New Orleans, we were met with hisses, boos, verbal harassment and even physical attacks from other members of the audience. But criminal charges were never so much as mentioned. Yet just weeks ago, students who interrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech at UC Irvine in February 2010 were convicted of two misdemeanors for their participation in the protests.

See if you can spot the difference between these two protests:

The period of time in the Hebrew calendar reaching from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur is thought of generally as one unit, in English commonly referred to as the High Holidays, whereas Sukkot, the festival which follows four days after Yom Kippur, is generally thought of as a festive holiday, one of the three biblical Temple festivals (Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot), entirely distinct from the Days of Awe which happen to precede it. The mystics, however, view the period from Rosh Hashana until the end of Sukkot as one long arc, not as distinct notes on the page but as one continuous unfolding melody reaching its crescendo not at Yom Kippur, as we might guess, but at Hoshana Rabba (the last day of Sukkot prior to the final festival of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah). As this tradition is unfamiliar to most people, we may have an easier time in resacralizing it in a way that would be meaningful for our contemporary situation.

The first step would be to depart from our usual hierarchy regarding seriousness over joy. Mardi Gras is always first, followed by Lent; one parties first and then when that is done, one can graduate to solemnity. However, the difference to be emphasized here is that the apogee of repentance and life transformation comes not at Yom Kippur, during the ‘serious’ service, but at Sukkot, the holiday described biblically as ‘the time of our rejoicing’. Rather than attempt to summarize the roots of this concept, I will quote R. Pinchas of Koretz, one of the earliest Hassidic thinkers, who was contemporary with the Baal Shem Tov, and whose analogy is quite memorable:

‘the time of our rejoicing’: Sukkah is the unification of HVYH and ADNY (the male and female names of Gd- numerically Sukka=91=the two names of Gd combined). This unification brings about Da’at (which is the Kabbalistic term for the interface between the two highest male/female names of Gd, and literally means Understanding. For context, Moshe, who brings the Torah from Sinai, represents Da’at), and when there is knowledge, there is joy.

The proof (for the superiority of joy over sadness, sukkot over the high holy days)  is, that if one observes a newborn, who has very little understanding– already at birth he is capable of crying. It is only much later, when their understanding grows– that a baby can smile‘

Thus, there is a greater spiritual and cognitive message implicit in the joy of the Sukkah experience than in all the crying meant to occur during the High Holidays! Any baby can cry, but it takes deeper understanding to smile.  Perhaps we can understand this to be more than a cute metaphor when we recognize the reasoning behind it:  that the repentance and spiritual growth seen in the High Holidays is a personal, individual one, whereas the joy of Sukkot reflects an interpersonal, social level (the analogy to the newborn is even more apt using modern pediatric developmental terminology– this facial expression which the baby achieves as a significant milestone of development is referred to as the ‘social smile’).

There is support for the social nature of Sukkot back at the source; for example, the Torah tells us that the people were meant to gather with the king in the event known as ‘hakhel’ (‘congregate’) every seven years specifically on Sukkot. A global perspective is taken by the Talmud, as the seventy sacrificial cows brought on Sukkot during the Temple period were read as being offered for the sake of all the nations of the world. The Sukka itself, as an image, suggesting a remembrance of the plight of the refugee, can certainly be read in this way, as does the Midrash and the medieval thinkers, and as did Rabbi Arthur Waskow in a recent issue of The Nation. Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin, in fact, explains that Sukkot follows the High Holiday period as a penitential exercise, that is, should we have been found guilty of sins requiring exile, we are, as it were, paying the price.

However, when one keeps in mind the emphasis on this being a time of joy, it seems more in tune with joy to read into the Sukka a “positive” value, that is, whereas the refugee imagery stresses the Sukka as symbolic of a “negative” value, a lack, a deficiency, (as per Hanna Arendt’s concept of the refugee being morally superior, given the lack of ability to oppress anyone, etc), clearly, to the mystics, a symbol associated with the highest Divine Union must contain within itself also a positive spiritual sense.

Interestingly, even when using the “negative” reading of the Sukka, there is an implied positive undercurrent. Thus, for example, the Bat Ayin, who spins the negative transient quality of  Sukka living into a positive, for creating a permanent dwelling would impede the continuous ascent that we make; he reads the verse in Kohelet 7:23, which is read on the Sabbath of Sukkot– “I thought I would be wise (echkimah), but she is ever further from me”, as suggesting that the ideal is not reaching (or inhabiting) a fixed goal, but rather a more fluid, never-ending attainment of higher and higher divine states.

If not only a negative space, then what is the positive element signified by the Sukka? Geographically, as it were, the Sukka is viewed as encompassing a novel, even privileged spiritual space– ‘I love Sukkot because it is the one commandment which I can be immersed in with my boots on’ goes the line attributed to R. Shmelkie of Nicholsburg. This viewing of the material substance as reflecting a divine containment (the Hida points out that the word Sukka itself in Hebrew, contains the two names of Gd not only in its total numerical value, but in the form whereby the outside two letters, S-H, equal the male term, and the inner letters, V-K equal the female name) is that seized upon by the Tiferet Shlomo. In the biblical proof text instructing the people to sit in the Sukka, the verse which reads “In Sukkot teshvu (shall you sit) seven days, in order that your generations shall know”, he adds another possible reading of the word teshvu as being derived not only from lashevet, to sit, but from the word teshuva, return, repentance, and thus the knowledge, the da’at, the level of relationship with Gd that was vivdly experienced by the generation liberated from Egypt, can be recreated by the act of teshuva, repentance, specific to the Sukka.

But what is that element that is specific to the Sukka that brings about this unique and high level of spiritual attainment? For this the Tiferet Shlomo cites another verse with a word similar to Sukka (more specifically, to the Halachically critical aspect of the Sukka– it is not the walls of the Sukka that are central, but rather the Sechach, the ecologically signifying roof, which must be made of organic substances only). The word sechach used as a verb is found in the verse regarding the Cherubim, the sculpture of two winged angels,  which adorned the ark which held the Tablets upon which were inscribed the original ten commandments. These Cherubim were described as creating a canopy with their wings (sochichim b’kanfeihem) the covering of the ark (the kaporet, which is itself similar to the word kapara, atonement).

In other words, according to the Tiferest Shlomo, Sukkot is the highest possibility of repentance, of world transformation (his exact phrase is ‘Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are the hakdama, the prologue to Sukkot’), and the specific defining feature of the superiority of Sukkot is found in the continuation of the verse about the Cherubim- who are described as being situated ‘with their faces one to another’.

Thus, the possibility for change for the better is highest on Sukkot, because in the Sukka, at the table, one is contained within the same space as another, face to face as it were, and thus the emphasis must be one’s responsibility for the Other.

This concept, of Sukkot being primarily about the encounter with others, and not simply the spiritual growth of the Self, is seen in the well known, but not fully understood, tradition of the Ushpizin, the supernal visitors (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc) who are welcomed into the Sukka each night. This tradition, which has become very widely accepted, is of late origin and is first found in the Zohar (III:103b). What is less well known is that this passage in the Zohar is meant to encourage the invitation of the needy to the festival table, to force contemplation of social justice. The Ushpizin come to partake not of the Sukka per se but of the meals placed for the poor, and as the Zohar states: ‘woe is he to whom a portion for the poor is not placed!’

This theme of inclusiveness as the central motif of the Sukkot experience is emphasized in the readings of the other unique symbol of this holiday, the four species which are bound together and waved originally as part of the Temple service, now during the synagogue prayers. There are a series of midrashim attempting to explain this odd agricultural service, but the one that concerns us likens the four species to differing types of people within the community: the etrog (citron), which is fragrant and tasty, represents those who are both well versed and act for the common good, the lulav (palm frond), produces edible fruit but has no fragrance, is like those who are well versed but don’t act for the common good, the hadassim (myrtle branches) are fragrant but produce no fruit, symbolizing those who do good but haven’t studies, whereas the aravah (willow branch), has neither fruit nor fragrance, and stands in for those members of the community who neither know nor volunteer. The midrash continues that together, they will atone one for another. It is not to be assumed, however, that the midrash means that the three more worthy types will atone for the ‘arava’, for that is not the language used, particularly in a parallel teaching in the Talmud (BT Menahot 27) which stresses that Israel does not achieve appeasement until all four are bound as one unity. The arava can’t be depreciated, even in the Midrashic reading, for in other Midrashim, brought in conjunction with this one, the arava is symbolic of any of the following highly positive references: the lips, Joseph, the matriarch Rachel, the court scribes, the name of Gd. Furthermore, on the final day of Sukkot, on the day which according to the Mishna the divine allotment of water for the whole world is decreed, the day on which (as a result of this Mishnaic view) according to the mystics, the absolutely final judgment on each individual is sealed (a view already found as early as Ramban), on this momentous day it is precisely the arava alone that is paraded around the altar, from Temple times to this very day.

So what, then, do the ‘aravot’, the unschooled, inactive people bring to the communal table? According to the Sefat Emet, they represent the ability to transcend the given situation of an individual, through prayer (hence the midrash comparing the arava to lips). Similarly, according to the Pri Ha’aretz, the arava symbolized pure emunah, pure faith, transcendent of the fragrance and flavor of either intellect or praxis. At any rate, we see that it is the total community, with its strengths and weaknesses, that are bound together in a mutually compensatory relationship. (In fact, according to the Tiferet Shlomo, the obscure custom of hitting the arava on the ground on Hoshana Rabba, a custom so obscure that it is labeled ‘of prophetic origin’, is meant to demonstrate that any segment of the people that breaks away from concern for all, that travels its own solitary way without regard for the others, as does the arava on its solo circuit around the altar on Hoshana Rabba, is doomed to a bad end.)

So perhaps we are not veering too far from the original message of Sukkot by suggesting that Hoshanna Rabba become synonymous with community-wide efforts to combat poverty. Perhaps that is a day when trans-denominational efforts to deal with local poverty, world-wide hunger, and an end to war, can be institutionalized and inscribed into the calendar, and celebrated as a holiday, perhaps the way it was originally intended. True joy is in the negation of suffering, it is the overcoming of sadness and grief we must celebrate.

(If anyone wants to seriously put this thought into action, I would be glad to be of assistance, contact me via email at mkirschb@yahoo.com)

A Tibetan monk burns himself in February of 2009 to protest the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese government. He was shot and arrested, and his whereabouts (if he's still alive) are unknown. / Students for a Free Tibet

by Tenzin Mingyur Paldron

“To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance.” – Thich Nhat Hanh, “In Search of the Enemy of Man.”

In the current era, we believe communication is possible almost instantaneously, across all spaces. A message can be transmitted across the world. It doesn’t matter where it stems from. Once digitally transmitted, it is carried, expanded, recreated…the trace of its owner is easily made invisible. Such technologies conquer time and boundaries, rendering divisions like individual status and national boundaries impotent. Nameless, ‘we’ can finally mean ‘everyone.’ In such an evolved world, what is left in a name?

The message reaching me now, the one that grasps hold of me in this moment, does not use a nameless, voiceless channel. Its speech is an action, incredibly rooted in a specific place and time. Its message brings something into being – by the same process, it destroys something else. The consolation of the message is that thing it leaves; life has been sacrificed, but by the same act it may be offered anew.

On March 17 of this year, twenty-one-year-old monk Lobsang Phuntsok set fire to himself outside Kirti monastery, located in Ngaba county in China’s Sichuan province. His actions set off a month-long siege of Kirti monks and Tibetan residents of Ngaba by Chinese forces, where phone lines were cut off and tourists were banned as residents and monks engaged in massive peaceful protests. Hundreds of monks were reportedly sent to “re-education through labor” camps as a result of their standoff with authorities.

In a few days the Occupy Wall Street movement arrives in my town, Oakland, and I am thinking a lot about what I want to do. As I reflect on what’s been happening in the last number of weeks, I feel quite uplifted and so, so relieved. For months I was watching with growing discomfort the absence of action in the US while nonviolent resistance was spreading like wildfire to more and more countries. Now, finally, the movement is spreading in this country which I have made my home since 1983. City after city now has its own occupy location, with a similar spirit in many of them. I am quite sure I am not alone in holding tremendous curiosity to see how things will unfold, and some hope that perhaps some shift could result, even a fundamental systemic change.

At the same time, I feel quite a bit of unease. Nonviolence, for me, is far from being simply the absence of overt physical violence. Nonviolence is a positive approach that requires tremendous courage. Nonviolence, if I listen carefully to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., rests on a deep love of all humans, including the ones the struggle and the resistance are mounted to topple. Nonviolence at its source emerges from clear vision, and is dramatically different from a purely oppositional movement. When Gandhi orchestrated the Salt March, he was at one and the same time violating the law as well as demonstrating with his actions the world he wanted to create. The same was true of the actions of young people during the Civil Rights Movement. A picket line outside segregated restaurants would have been pure protest. Boycotting the restaurants and blocking people from entering them would have been a disruption of business as usual. Actually sitting at the lunch counters, blacks and whites together, was what Sharif Abdullah calls “vision implementation.” Just like the Salt March, these actions were already part of the world being created, the transformation already taking place.

When I was a child, I remember asking my father what his favorite holiday was, to which he replied, without blinking an eye: Yom Kippur. I thought he was just being his usual contrarian self, but later found that indeed, the Talmud agrees with him, stating that Yom Kippur was one of the two happiest days of the year for the people of Israel¹. Why should a day we traditionally experience as being somber be considered the happiest day of the year? It would appear that there are two reasons. The first being that in antiquity, at this time of the day, just after musaf on Yom Kippur, there was a big dance event, all the single women would dress in white and dance in the fields for the single men who would choose among them and subsequently marry. Unfortunately, this is no longer a part of our Yom Kippur experience, but perhaps the Book of Jonah might point to our other source of joy on this day.

It is an odd little book. Most of us know the part about a whale, but in short, the story relates how Gd appears to the prophet Jonah ben Amitai and tells him he needs to go abroad to save a city from destruction. Prophesizing to the surrounding nations is not unusual for the classical prophets, they are all recorded as doing it, but this time, rather than raining doom upon enemies, Jonah is told to go save the most wicked and nasty of Israel’s enemies, the people of Ninveh. Jonah knows just how bad these people will ultimately become, because he is described in the book of Kings II as prophesizing  how they will conquer Israel and destroy the Temple, imagine a nationalist prophet having to go save someone like Ahmadinejad. So his response is to board a boat and go in exactly the opposite direction. This part of the story we all know; there’s a storm and ultimately Jonah is thrown overboard. Incidentally, this text may be the first and last description of polite sailors… At any rate, Gd “rubs it in” by having Jonah saved via a big fish, the fish being the symbol of Ninveh (“nun” in Aramaic means “fish”). So after being spit out, Jonah obediently makes his way to Ninveh, delivers his message of “repent or die” and to his dismay, the people of Ninveh, all the way up to the king, indeed repent and are saved. Jonah sulks outside of the city, where he finds some shade under a “kikayon” bush. Gd, completing his message to us, sends a worm which sucks the life out of the bush, and Jonah throws a fit. Gd says to him, so you are upset over the loss of this bush that helped you out this one time? Jonah answers, yes, I’m REALLY upset, to which Gd replies, this one time favor, the way this bush helped you out NOW is what is crucial to your feelings about it? Well, RIGHT NOW this city has repented. What happened in the past has been atoned, and what will come in the future is still subject to change, but RIGHT NOW I will not destroy them because of your political grievances.

And this , I submit, is the cause of the joy of Yom Kippur. We can look at our lives, see the mistakes we’ve made, and say, I can’t change the past, and who knows what the future will hold, but I can say that RIGHT NOW, just before our beautiful Neila service², that I want to be a better person, that I want to change my life, and RIGHT NOW that’s really all one needs to turn one’s life around. There really is no greater happiness than that.

¹Tu B’Av being the other, see our essay on Perashat Ekev for a “feminist” reading of this link to Tu B’Av.

²Rabbi Felipe Goodman of Temple Beth Shalom has created a unique custom for his congregation of filing before the open ark during the neila service that is quite striking and should be more well known.

from "We are the 99 Percent"

Last winter, a ninety-three-year-old Frenchman became famous for two words.

The words, “Indignez-vous!” (“become indignant!”), were the title of a booklet the man wrote urging young people to rekindle the values of the French Resistance of World War II and to fight for progressive values.

The author, Stéphane Hessel, joined the Resistance in London when he was in his twenties, returned to France to gather intelligence, and was caught by the Gestapo and waterboarded. Indignation, Hessel writes, motivated him to risk his life to fight for a better France.

His booklet struck a chord in France, where members of the Resistance are hailed as national heroes, and Hessel sold more than three-and-a-half million copies worldwide.

In the booklet, Hessel writes that indignation is the base from which meaningful political movements grow. Indignation is “precious” because it makes one “militant, strong, and engaged.”

In the United States, the Occupy Wall Street movement has within it kernels that answer Hessel’s call.

Carlo Strenger

Carlo Strenger chairs the clinical graduate program in psychology at Tel Aviv University and is a liberal opinion writer for Haaretz and the Huffington Post. His latest post at HP, “Open Letter to Mahmoud Abbas for Yom Kippur,” asks Abbas to directly address the Israeli people, to convince them that he really believes in a two-state solution for peace with the Jewish state. Here is my abridged version of this excellent piece:

Dear Mr. Abbas,
…. [A] state of Israel that oppresses another people is an affront to my Jewishness and for that of the majority of Jews worldwide for whom human rights are an inviolable value — precisely because our people has suffered immensely from bigotry and racism. 

Given my sympathy for your cause, I hope you will listen to my call to you….

…. You must take the step Sadat took. You must come to the Knesset and tell Israelis that you recognize Israel as the Jewish people’s homeland. 

Tell Israelis that the Palestinian people demand that their tragedy of 1948 be acknowledged and recognized; but that you do not demand physical return of refugees to Israel; that individual Palestinians can claim compensation for the loss of their homes; but that… you recognize that physical return is no longer an option. 



Protesters march down Wall Street on September 18, 2011. Flickr / pweiskel08

In a recent Wikileaks release, IDF Major-General (reserves) Amos Gilad was quoted as telling an American official that Israel doesn’t do “do Gandhi very well.” He meant that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) have a more difficult time responding to peaceful protests than violent ones because they know that using force against non-violence will only strengthen the cause of the protesters. Every authority structure from Mubarak’s Egypt to the Obama administration faces the same conundrum when confronted by these types of protests.

In the heart of New York’s financial district adjacent to Wall Street, there has been a growing protest movement called Occupy Wall Street. This group’s occupation of Zuccotti Park for more than three weeks is reminiscent of the Egyptian revolution and Israel’s social justice protests. All of these movements occupied a public area to create a space for free expression and protest.I noticed one of the early organizers of Occupy Wall Street wearing a pin that read, “Fight Like an Egyptian.” This suggests that the protesters are committed to the same type of civil disobedience that was central to the Egyptian Revolution, including the peaceful occupation of a public area. Within sight of the World Trade Center, the protest movement in Zuccotti Park evokes a certain irony in the failed War on Terror: the U.S. focus on violent Islamism fails to recognize that the real challenge to its authority may be the impassioned peaceful protests inspired by the recent non-violent movements across the Arab World, which may themselves be a rejection of Islamism’s violent tactics.

Demonstrators carrying a golden calf in the shape of a Wall Street bull march from Judson Memorial Church to Zuccotti Park on Sunday, October 9. / Tom Martinez and Dennis Hearn

by Donna Schaper

The author is a senior minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. The following is a sermon she delivered on Sunday, October 9.

Right now our hopes are playing with fire – and we want to make sure we don’t get burned. Second we want to stay lit. So many people tell each other that they are “burnt out” or a little “fried around the edges.” These metaphors fail to describe reality. The truth is many of us haven’t even been lit yet. We aren’t burnt out or even burning out. We are not machines. We haven’t even been lit yet. What is happening downtown is LIT precisely because it is so different than most of what we do. It has the beautiful ping of good crystal. Call and repeat all by itself is a new way of talking. TRAIN THEM. The meek are rising, and we are accepting a blessing by talking ourselves into blessed speech.

Occupy Wall Street is meek. The meek are people who respect power and know their place. They know how to keep their mouths shut. The meek are people without a microphone. They don’t think of themselves as attractive enough or rich enough or smart enough to say anything. Most meek people have internalized capitalism so much that they (and we) imagine that we should do what capitalism says, use its values for ourselves – and then if we have some time left over, we should have a little peace or do a little yoga or meditation or peace.

A derivative of this sermon was delivered at Temple Beth Israel in Steubenville, Ohio on Yom Kippur during Kol Nidre services, at the start of Yom Kippur.

Many of the most dramatic moments in a hospital come when something goes unexpectedly wrong. A surgery gone array, a condition gone undiagnosed, or a patient who just doesn’t seem to be pulling through. The surgeons, doctors, nurses, technicians, and specialists do all that is within their power to help their patients — but sometimes there is nothing to be done.

This was a reality I experienced firsthand last year, while serving as a chaplain intern. I was working in the Palliative Care Unit at a large hospital in New York, meeting with patients who faced serious or life-threatening illness. Medicine could do so much — but not everything. Sometimes it couldn’t do anything at all.

In some of those moments of helplessness, when the hospital could no longer keep a patient alive, I took on a truly difficult role: I, along with a team of specialists far more experienced than myself, would break the news of a patient’s death to a family. We would sit in a meeting room off to the side of a hospital corridor. We would give the worst news to people who wanted nothing but the best for their loved ones.

Reactions would vary tremendously on the part of families. Some would express relief that a loved one’s suffering had ended. Others would cry out in pain at the loss. Still others would grieve circumstances that seemed so unfair. But most family members were filled with regret — not only for themselves, but also for the loved one who had died.

Why so much regret? For some, it was because of errors, or perceived mistakes, made early in life — incidents or challenges that the patient had long known about. But for many, there were a whole host of new regrets they voiced on behalf of their loved ones. These ideas had probably not occurred to the patient while he or she was alive. The regrets only became clear after death itself.

When I was twelve my family moved from Israel to Mexico for two years. This decision happened immediately following the first year in my young life, and one of the only times in my life overall, that I had a sense of belonging and acceptance in a group of peers. The decision was made by my parents without consulting with any of us: my seventeen-year-old sister, myself, or my younger sister who was then five. More than that: it was made against my vociferous opposition, which was so strong that I was semi-seriously contemplating jumping off the ship and swimming back to Israel.

Not only did my parents have the legal right to take me against my will. That right is enshrined in millennia of social norm. Would I have wanted my parents not to go to Mexico because I didn’t want to go? Not exactly. I would have wanted them to be open to considering not going as a possible outcome once all the needs were on the table. More than anything, I would have wanted them to hear and appreciate the horrible loss I was about to incur, to hear my plight and hold my needs alongside theirs. I would have wanted them to let me know, in full, their needs, their struggles, and their perspective that would lead them to want to go. I would have wanted to be invited into joint holding of all the needs and making the decision together. The experience of having no choice and no say in our lives, endemic and pervasive in almost all children’s lives, many women’s lives, still, around the world, and other groups with little access to resources is acutely painful and traumatic. I wish it on no one, not even people who have done acts of horror against others, and certainly not so many of us on a daily basis.

Flickr / Mat DcDermott

The prophet Isaiah stood outside the ancient Israelite Temple and denounced those fasting on Yom Kippur who nevertheless were participating in an immoral society. Said Isaiah (in a statement that is now read in synagogues around the world on Yom Kippur morning though its message mostly ignored when it applies to some Jews’ participation in some of the most exploitative practices of Western capitalism or in support for the current right-wing government of Israel even as it engages in oppression of Palestinians):

Look! On the very day you fast you keep scrabbling for wealth; On the very day you fast you keep oppressing all your workers. Look! You fast in strife and contention. You strike with a wicked fist. You are not fasting today in such a way As to make your voices heard on high. Is that the kind of fast that I desire? Is that really a day for people to “press down their egos”? Am I commanding you to droop your heads like bulrushes And lie around in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast day, The kind of day that the God of the Burning Bush would wish? No! This is the kind of fast that I desire: Unlock the hand-cuffs put on by wicked power! Untie the ropes of the yoke! Let the oppressed go free, And break off every yoke! Share your bread with the hungry. Bring the poor, the outcasts, to your house.When you see them naked, clothe them; They are your flesh and blood; Don’t hide yourself from them! Then your light will burst through like the dawn; Then when you need healing it will spring up quickly; Then your own righteousness will march ahead to guard you. And a radiance from YHWH will reach out behind to guard you. Then, when you cry out, YHWH will answer; Then, when you call, God will say: “Here I am!” If you banish the yoke from your midst, If you rid yourself of scornful finger-pointing And words of contempt; If you open up your life-experience to the hungry

This 2010 oil painting "Yard" (70X100) by Elie Shamir depicts the connection of the people of the Jezre’el Valley to their agricultural landscapes. Shamir is distressed about the idea of a major airport being constructed within a short radius of his community. / Image Courtesy of Elie Shamir

by Hadas Marcus

Around this time of year, many Jews worldwide conduct their own moral inventory with the hope of accomplishing more and becoming better people. I too want to make a meaningful contribution…if it is not too late.

This is a period of uncertainty as we await a kind of verdict – not related to Yom Kippur – but rather one that is nonetheless crucial to the people of Israel, particularly residents of the North. On October 23, the Israeli government will announce its final decision on whether or not to erect an enormous international airport next to the Megiddo Junction. That announcement will greatly impact not only me, but the whole surrounding area.

If the proposal for this international airport is given a green light, it will lead to appalling detriment to the residents’ quality of life, and even greater damage to the whole environment. As the daughter of a structural engineer, I am not against progress per se, but it needs to make sense, and this does not. Most people, even those who are less conscientious than I am about sustainability, agree that there is no need for another airport to be located here.

NATBAG 2, as it has been labeled, is reportedly to be constructed off the Kvish HaSargel, or the Ruler Road, in the same fields that attract thousands of visitors annually as the stunning carpet of many-hued flowers blooms in the spring. Across from these fields, tall eucalyptus trees have been standing for decades.It is in these skies that literally millions of birds migrate through a bottleneck from one continent to the next. Planes will disrupt their migration routes and diminish avian populations; large-sized birds can also cause human casualties if they are sucked into a plane engine or collide with the windshield, as has been documented by Dr. Yossi Leshem from Tel Aviv University.

by Dan Brook

The Al Cheyt is a traditional part of the Yom Kippur-Day of Atonement liturgy, in which Jews publicly confess our individual and communal sins, our going astray, literally our missing the mark, each of us alone and all of us together. We are not necessarily personally at fault for each sin, yet we are all responsible for all the sins.

There are 36 sins listed below divided into two sections of 18. In Judaism, the number 18 is associated with life, 36 with justice; a sin means missing the mark; and it is a mitzvah-holy deed to both “remember” and “not forget”. Please feel free to adopt or adapt this Al Cheyt, which is neither comprehensive nor perfect, for your personal, professional, spiritual, or religious practice.

I am not sure how to convey the power of this poetry collection.

I can tell you that once I picked up Love Cake, I could not put it down until I finished every poem, even though I sometimes had to read through my tears. Upon finishing, I immediately had to call a femme friend to read her a poem that reminded me of her. Relocating from my couch to my bed, I sank in and re-read the entire collection.

I want to say that the poems tore out my heart. I keep seeing an image of my heart getting pulled out of my chest, but my heart does not remain in the air, naked and exposed. Instead, birds carefully wind orange velvet ribbons around it before they replace it in my chest cavity, prettier and stronger than it was before. These poems demand that I feel everything more intensely–including grief and rage–but in return, they give me back something I didn’t know I was missing: an expansive sense of possibility. The morning after I read this collection, I woke up from my sleep with a feeling of anticipation, remembering that I had been given an unexpectedly precious gift that I will carry deep inside me.

The gift of this poetry collection is nothing less than a roadmap to what liberation can look like for queer people who survive personal and collective trauma. Describing border crossings that she experiences as a queer working class person of color, Leah Laskshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha gives voice to the involuntary incursions on her body: child abuse, colonialism, racism, and war; as well as her voluntary crossings of boundaries: leaving her family of origin, rediscovering her roots in Sri Lanka, and reclaiming her body. She maintains a tension between oppression and healing throughout, in poems that leave no doubt about her power as a survivor, healer, and activist.