If you have been admiring our new magazine website since it debuted in March, and wondered who put it all together, well here are most of us at an evening celebrating the achievement.

The two Tikkun staff who saw the project through from soup to nuts are Alana Yu-lan Price, second from left at bottom, and me, the baldy with specs at back. Our designer, with whom we worked from the get go, is Sabiha Basrai of Design Action, to the right of Alana. Sabiha has also designed the print magazine for the last four years, and the three of us have had a great time working together. The style and functionality (in design terms) of the new website owe more to these two women than to anyone else. Colin Sagan of Quilted also gave us excellent advice about magazine website design.

The fires of democracy continue to burn brightly in Wisconsin.

With a Smile, Photo by Rebecca Congo

Recall campaigns are racing along, and a recent community meeting in Milwaukee, usually a sleepy, ill-attended affair, boasted several hundred attendants. When their representative, Chris Larson, one of the “Wisconsin 14″ showed up, they jumped to their feet in a standing ovation. Neighborhood listservs are boiling with activity.

Photo of and by Rebecca Congo+Friend

On Facebook and in a thousand union and church meetings, people solidify their connections with each other and their commitment to recover and strengthen our precious democracy.

Meaningful Individual Acts, Meaningful Collective Acts

April 4^th and 5^th, there were dozens of opportunities to participate in democracy both publicly and privately. At least five activities were planned for the South Bay (Please comment and post photos if you attended one of these.)

We’ve got a bunch of exciting new videos up from our 25th Anniversary on March 14th!

Watch Rabbi Lerner’s moving keynote, Judge Richard Goldstone’s acceptance speech for the Tikkun Award, and the great animation about Citizens United and the need for a constitutional amendment (like the ESRA!) put together by the wonderful people from the Story of Stuff. Co-Managing Editor Alan Yu-lan Price speaks about the atomization of progressive movements and the need to form anti-generational, cross-class alliances in building a caring society. Associate Editor Peter Gabel gives a moving piece on the relevance and importance of Tikkun today, and Founding Publisher Nan Fink-Gefen tells the unlikely story of Tikkun‘s origins. See the amazing spoken word of Josh Healey as well as two poems read by Pulitzer prize winning poet and Tikkun Award recipient C.K. Williams. Watch all the acceptance speeches, including Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Naomi Newman, Rabbi Marcia Prager, and Congressman Raul Grijalva. All the videos from the 25th Anniversary can be seen here.

Thanks to everyone who joined us on that night and who has helped us get to 25 years!

One week after Jews all over the world nosh on Haman’s hat, dress in kooky costumes and party until we no longer recognize the difference between the ancient Persian equivalents of Hitler and Einstein, our preparation for Passover begins. On Shabbat Parah we study the enigmatic commandment to purify ourselves from contact with the dead through the sacrifice of a young, unblemished, red cow.

In many ways, this reading seems to continue the comedic inversions and paradoxes of Purim, the Jewish Mardi Gras. But surprise and delight at our continued presence on earth gives way to thoughtful reflection on emancipation from slavery and the attendant new-found responsibility we incur as a nation of free citizens. Observance takes a serious turn. Passover swings into view.

Parshat Parah is a pivotal passage. Why does this turning point in an overwhelmingly patriarchal text appear to revolve around menstruation?

We do apologize that the Tikkun website was down for several hours today. We were at first told it was a cyber attack, but it wasn’t clear whether it was on us or on our provider, a Japanese company. Eventually it appeared this company was being besieged on the phone by many customers, preventing us from getting through; when we did, they restarted our server and all was well. That’s all I know so far, and hope we were just one among many affected by the Japanese devastation and not the objects of a targeted attack on Tikkun.

We had two genuine such attacks today. A relatively mild one was our being called self-hating Jews in a letter in the San Francisco Chronicle (4th letter down on this page) objecting to my letter of Monday (also 4th letter down here), that I also posted on this site. It was tedious to have such an ad hominem response to my points — let us by all means disagree about what will most help Israel to survive but let’s not stoop to name-calling and assumptions of bad faith or evil intent.

That kind of personal disrespect escalates so easily – first people call Rabbi Michael Lerner a self-hating Jew, as they have done for years (but just come once to one of his services and see the joy this man has in Judaism; or hear him tell about the effect the Holocaust had on him as a child, or read this); then some extremists plaster his home with posters and graffiti showing him, among other things, as a dog on a lead held by Justice Richard Goldstone who is portrayed as a hater of Israel (this was last May after Michael announced we would give the Tikkun Award to Judge Goldstone, one of Israel’s truest friends, with the courage to say what friends need to say); and last night they plastered his home again but portraying him now as a Nazi. Escalation. What’s next? This is the kind of hate crime (as the Berkeley police officially labeled it) that can encourage even more off the wall people to think they are doing the world a service by attacking the person not just the house. This time there were no overt death threats though, unlike last time, I am happy to say.

A San Francisco Bay Area web magazine editor called me this morning to offer congratulations on Tikkun‘s 25th Anniversary, and also on my letter to the editor about it that she saw published in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning (below). Before Jo Ellen Kaiser edited Zeek she was the longest serving editor at Tikkun, so I said she deserved the congratulations more than I did.

Indeed all of our past staff are included in our gratitude today. And all those who have written for us. You may not realize that no one who writes in Tikkun gets paid: that’s nothing we are proud of, in fact we are ashamed to say it and wish that we knew how to be a better-funded organization; but still we are amazed and filled with gratitude that so many people do want to write for Tikkun out of passion, love and whatever other reasons.

And there is you, the reader, the center of the whole enterprise, whose interest and involvement and readiness to shell out for a subscription (it’s not too late to subscribe now!) or to donate is what in the end makes this possible. If you weren’t seeking how to tackle the problems we have with a different kind of thinking than the thinking that created them (to paraphrase Einstein) we wouldn’t be here.

For the last six months we have been designing and constructing a new website for Tikkun magazine and it went live late on Saturday night. Do check it out here and through the “Tikkun Main Site” link above.

In his Welcome to Our New Website Michael Lerner writes:

Tikkun magazine is a voice for all who seek to build what we call the “Caring Society – caring for each other, caring for the earth.” We are a voice for all who refuse to accept that environmental destruction, wars, poverty, oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, hatred or fear of Jews, or despair are inevitable. We are the voice of those who refuse to be “realistic” and who instead are engaged in the struggle (a long-term struggle to be sure) to build a world of love and kindness; generosity; compassion; repentance and forgiveness; ethical and ecological sensitivity and responsibility; and awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe.

The print magazine is continuing to exist as a shorter quarterly publication, but the web is where we will now be publishing the majority of our content.

Controversy

For the most part, I have been staying clear of controversies. My passion, and where I see my gifts, is for the process of bringing people together across differences more so than in advocating for this or that position. I take a stand for certain principles and for a vision of a world that serves everyone, not for particular opinions, even though I do have my opinions in abundance. This is a conscious and ongoing choice because I want to make myself available to everyone, not only those with whom I happen to agree on any given issue.

Today, however, I am about to walk a complex line on a rather sensitive topic. I am doing this because I have been writing about tests of courage several times in the last several weeks, and I want to acknowledge two men who have taken a stand despite significant costs in order to honor their own values and moral integrity.

A week from Monday, on March 14^th, Tikkun is celebrating its 25^th anniversary, to which the public is invited. Part of the celebration consists of 6 awards given to a number of people, one of whom is Justice Richard Goldstone from South Africa. Goldstone headed a fact-finding commission of the UN to Gaza in 2008-2009, and the report that came from that investigation has been the center of enormous controversy. So much so, that Goldstone agreed not to go to his grandson’s Bar Mitzvah to avoid a mass demonstration that would divert attention away from the family and the focus on the boy.

The Spring 2011 issue of Tikkun is in the mail now to subscribers. Here’s the top half of the back cover:

Michael Lerner always puts on terrific events and this will be no exception. We will hear from each of the honorees above, as well as from Michael and Peter Gabel, who has guided Tikkun with Michael from the start. There will be energizing and spiritually deep music in between speeches. So if you can hop a plane, car or bike and come along, don’t miss it! Click here to register.

Protest in Wisconsin photo by A. Renner

Special Dispatch: Solidarity in Wisconsin

In Jordan, teachers protested this week for the right to form unions. In Wisconsin, they fought to keep that right. The stakes and the dangers in Jordan are enormously higher, but it’s a sad irony that we find ourselves sliding down to the status of a country that doesn’t even pretend to be a democracy. I wish with all my heart for these dangerous struggles in the Mideast and North Africa to bear real and lasting fruit, that in each of these cases, justice will prevail.

And I’m proud of my home state. I’ve been proud all week. Newly-elected Tea Party Governor Walker proposes to remove collective bargaining rights on workplace rules, safety, pensions, benefits, overtime, and, for salary, more than a cost of living adjustment would require a state referendum! This drastic curtailment of a voice for workers in their working conditions affects teachers, custodians, game wardens, university employees, librarians, health service workers, everyone except firefighters, police, and state troopers.

An article by Daniel Ming and Aaron Glantz in yesterday’s (San Francisco) Bay Citizen, also in the New York Times Bay Area edition:

A Jewish Group Makes Waves, Locally and Abroad

Some Bay Area activists hope a new Egyptian government will lead to an end of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories

Hundreds of people, mostly Arab-Americans, are expected to gather Saturday in downtown San Francisco to support anti-government protests in Egypt, and a large contingent of Jews representing a Bay Area peace-advocacy group will join them, one of its leaders says.

“We are deeply inspired by their push for democracy and freedom,” said Cecilie Surasky, deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, based in Oakland….

The unrest in Egypt is merely the latest issue to pit a number of Bay Area activists against prominent Jewish organizations, as well as against some Israelis who have come to see the Bay Area as a locus for Jewish opposition to Israel’s government….

The divisions have heightened tensions among Bay Area Jews. During one altercation last year, a pro-Israel activist attacked two representatives of Jewish Voice for Peace with pepper spray. Last March, Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun, a bimonthly Jewish magazine based in Berkeley, received death threats, and his home was plastered with signs accusing him of “Islamo-Fascism,” after he announced that he planned to give an award to a United Nations official who led an investigation into Israel’s 2008 invasion of Gaza.

And if you are in the Bay Area come to our 25th Anniversary celebration when we will give six people including that official, Judge Richard Goldstone, the Tikkun Award! We’re happy that they picked up on this as well:

Brenda Shoshanna

by Brenda Shoshanna

Many, many questions arise in our minds when someone close to us is seriously ill. It takes a while to realize that these questions do not have one answer. They have many answers, appear in different ways, and may have different impacts on us at different times. In a sense a finger is being pointed in our direction. These questions are demanding a response . . We cannot be free from answering. Life itself is demanding a reply. Some of the questions we struggle with are:

“How is suffering truly relieved?”

“What is the best way through serious illness and beyond?”

Little Rock, 1959. Rally at state capitol, protesting the integration of Central High School.

In April, I was riding the DC Metro to the Capitol Mall, when several Tea Party demonstrators got on and sat a few seats away from me. The first, a young white man, wore red-and-white striped shoes with blue tops and other Uncle Sam garb; the young, white woman with him carried a hand-made sign on which was glued an old document titled “The Constitution” and the words, “Miss me yet?”

Their origins, judging by hair, clothes, accent, and where they got on seemed to be lower middle class church goers. Not rich. Not sophisticates. And not stupid. I wanted to ask the woman, “Which part of the Constitution do you see as lost?” Had she read it all the way through?

Who Are These People?

Who dresses up in red, white, and blue costumes, demonstrates, and now, votes for astonishingly extremist candidates in New York and Delaware? What motivates them?

We hear from investigative reports that the Tea Party is, by and large, a middle class group, including ironically people with jobs in the Department of Defense (never a waste of tax dollars), and nourished behind the scenes by wealthy conservatives like Dick Cheney and his daughter, but it has spread. Looking at those two, I caught a glimpse of a world they probably longed for, a world I grew up in, a place that we, as a country, have been before.

The phones have been ringing off the hook here as word spreads of the threatening intrusion upon our editor’s home. It’s heartening to hear some empathetic voices after weathering the days of hate mail that followed Tikkun‘s decision to present an award to Judge Goldstone for standing up for human rights in Israel/Palestine.

Sometime late last night or in the wee hours of the morning, vandals glued threatening posters to Rabbi Lerner’s door and around his home. Some posters attacked Lerner personally; others targeted liberals and progressives more generally, accusing them of supporting terrorism and “Islamo-fascism.” Here’s an excerpt from the statement that he and his assistant Will Pasley sent out via email this afternoon:

Permaculture for Starhawk is a practical application of Paganism. This is the link that connects the Goddess(es) and our vegetable gardens. The Goddess, as we know her within Wicca and other forms of Paganism, represents the cycles of birth – growth – death – decay – and regeneration, exactly the cycles that permaculture deals with in a more pragmatic way.

To say that the Goddess is sacred doesn’t mean you have to believe in something outside of yourself, according to Starhawk. It simply means that you need to shift your attitude towards viewing these natural cycles as amazing, even miraculous. Spiritually, we need to pay attention to how they’re happening around us all the time. They are the ways we connect with each other most deeply and with all other life forms on the planet. If we approach them with awe, reverence, and respect, these natural processes will lead us into ways of living and working that will create more health, abundance, beauty, and biodiversity as well as more joy and freedom on the planet. And if we don’t, Starhawk admonishes, we’ll get the mess we’re in today.

Starhawk was generous with her time while she was here in Madison a month ago. She granted me two interviews, the first about Palestine and the second — which I will begin to post today now that I’m back from my vacation — about permaculture. For those of you who don’t know her, Starhawk is the best-known Wiccan author alive today. She’s published eleven books, including The Spiral Dance, which introduced many of us to Wicca. From the beginning of her career, she’s been very involved as an activist, and since the 1990s she’s been most active in promoting permaculture.

Star came to permaculture as a natural outgrowth of her Paganism. After many years in the Goddess movement — where we declared that the Earth was a sacred, living organism that manifests Herself in the cycles of birth, growth, death, and regeneration that occur in all of nature, including our own human culture — Star discovered permaculture. She soon realized it was a practical application of her spiritual path.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Israel of increasing its arbitrary repression of Palestinian non-violent activism lately. Abdullah Abu Rahma’s arrest — which I reported on in the second segment of my interview with Starhawk — is part of this crack-down in Bil’in, Nil’in, and Ramallah, where grassroots demonstrations have begun to mobilize Palestinians, Israelis, and international solidarity against the wall being built between the occupied territories and Israel. According to HRW,

Israel is building most of the barrier inside the West Bank rather than along the Green Line, in violation of international humanitarian law. In recent months, Israeli military authorities have arbitrarily arrested and denied due process rights to several dozen Palestinian anti-wall protesters.

Starhawk believes that the Israeli government fears this non-violent resistance more than the violent action they’ve contended with for years. Why? Because the government knows the movement’s power to shift public opinion and mobilize people against Israeli injustice. These grassroots efforts undermine several pillars of Israeli control in the occupied territories, according to Starhawk, and start to shatter the story that Palestinians are all evil terrorists.

Like most Jewish kids in postwar America, Starhawk grew up believing that Israel was the salvation of the Jewish people. She collected pennnies to plant trees in the Holy Land, learned Israeli folk songs and Israeli dances, and dreamed of going to Israel. At 15 she finally attended a Zionist program in Israel.

Star believes that she was raised with a compelling story — that Jews were kicked around for 2,000 years, almost exterminated in the Holocaust, and out of those ashes, finally got their own land again. “And by God,” she adds, “nobody’s going to take an inch of it away from us.” This is a persuasive story for many people, according to Starhawk. But unfortunately, the Palestinians aren’t in it.

For Starhawk, as for many American Jews of her age, it was painful to face the injustice that Israel was carrying out against the Palestinian people. Star senses that much of this injustice stems on a deep psychological level from an inability to see the Palestinian people as people — with their own humanity, their own rights, their own desires and flaws. Denying Palestinians that full range of humanity — and acknowledging that their ranks include the good, the bad, the vicious, the kind, the compassionate — is at the root of the unjust treatment they receive. Seeing every Palestinian as a suicide bomber who wants to kill an Israeli will not resolve this conflict. Nor will denying the existence of the Palestinians.

Starhawk hopes that another compelling narrative will begin to take the place of the one that she grew up with. This is a tale that’s very familiar to readers of Tikkun. It’s the story that Judaism stands for justice, for the regneration of the world, for tikkun olam. This, too, is a powerful story. And Star believes that if we can call people back to that story — as painful as it is to face the truth of what Israel has done to Palestine — then we can actually stop this injustice.

Growing up I believed that you could get either love OR respect in life, but not both. This was my mother’s understanding of the way the world worked — one she taught me from day one — and maybe it was true for her or even for women of her generation. But over the years, I’ve discovered that without respect, love is a hollow sweetness, and that without love, respect can result in a distance that undoes its best intentions.

These insights came back to me Sunday at First Unitarian Society in Madison as I listened to our associate minister Karen Gustavson offer one of her best sermons ever. It was well-crafted, contained great stories and great intelligence, but I disagreed completely with what she had to say. The sermon was also about a topic that I care about with every cell in my body — about our need to love and care for the Earth. And so I feel compelled to present a different viewpoint.

We in the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) are considering changes in the language of our “Principles and Purposes,” the statements that guide our work together as an association of free, but interdependent congregations. Karen was responding on Sunday to the rewording of the seventh principle, a change that would substitute the word reverence for the word respect in the phrase “we covenant to honor and uphold … respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” She made an effective appeal for retaining the original language –respect — because she believes that to revere something implies a certain passivity — true for our fundamentalist brethren, but not for me and other people on the left hand of God — while respect indicates an active response. Obviously, this is not my experience.

What all Unitarian Universalists want in this rewrite of the seventh principle is language that reflects care for the Earth as a religious imperative, not an optional activity.

Welcome to AlterNet readers! We love the new AlterNet site [where Harriet Fraad's Tikkun article was cross-posted] and we hope you will love this blog, which aims to refresh the souls of weary leftists. We challenge the religiophobic parts of the Left to engage in better strategies that connect with the American people, who find the crises of modernity to be spiritual as well as economic (but often it is only the Religious Right that speaks to the spiritual crisis). Atheists are as welcome here as believers: for us spirituality is more about how we act than what theological beliefs we hold. We have ideas for Obama, of course, but he’s not listening to us. Tikkun Olam means to heal and repair the world. Let us know in the comments whether you think our posts and our art gallery are helping to do that.

Our lead article in the current print issue of Tikkun is “American Depressions” by psychotherapist Harriet Fraad. The Table of Contents of the whole issue is here — check out Chris Hedges on Celebrity Culture and the Obama Brand and other great pieces, most of which you still have to buy the print magazine to read: try your local bookstore or get one here. You can also subscribe to get the most visionary magazine on the American Left!

Harriet Fraad, on the public access TV show The Struggle (http://thestruggle.org/MediaP.htm)

Harriet Fraad says she wrote “American Depressions”

out of a great sadness that Americans have been unable to defend their lives and stop the bleeding of their wounded salaries, their jobs, their homes and their relationships. I read about the militant and successful demonstrations and other tactics that defended Europeans and wondered, what happened to us?

The Left is well known for providing a gloomy read on America — after all, somebody has to tell the truth. But it used to be that the Left was also the place to go for vision about this world, the dream of socialism. That dream has taken some knocks, just as the mainstream American dream has taken some knocks. What’s to keep a person’s spirits up?