Editorials & Actions

Mourning the Parisian Journalists Yet Challenging the Hypocrisy

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You can also read this article in Rabbi Lerner’s column on the front page of Huffington Post (and if you do go there, please “like it” (if you like it) and add your own comments. Mourning the Parisian “Humorists” Yet Challenging the Hypocrisy of Western Media
by Rabbi Michael Lerner

As the editor of a progressive Jewish and interfaith magazine that has often articulated views that have prompted condemnation from both Right and Left, I had good reason to be scared by the murders of fellow journalists in Paris. Having won the 2014 “Magazine of the Year” Award from the Religion Newswriters Association, and having been critical of Hamas’ attempts to bomb Israeli cities this past summer (even while being equally critical of Israel’s rampage against civilians in Gaza), I have good reason to worry if this prominence raises the chances of being a target for Islamic extremists. But then again, I had to wonder about the way the massacre in Paris is being depicted and framed by the Western media as a horrendous threat to Western civilization, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, I wondered about the over-heated nature of this description. It didn’t take me long to understand how problematic that framing really is.

US Politics

Oriental (Mizrachi) Israelis and the Coming Israeli Elections

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Uri Avnery on Oriental Jews in Israel and The Coming Elections
January 10, 2015
                                    Half of Shas        
THE SHAS party has split into two. Opinion polls show that both parts are hovering around the 3.12% threshold which is now necessary for entering the Knesset, after the minimum was raised by the last Knesset. 
Many people in Israel would be glad if both parts do not make it, and Shas would disappear once and for all from our political landscape. 
Not I.

SHAS IS the party of oriental orthodox Jewish Israelis. It is debatable whether it is foremost orthodox or foremost oriental. I believe that the oriental part of its outlook is far more important. (The term “oriental” needs some explanation.

Editorials & Actions

Dennis Ross, you must Stop Blaming the Palestinians

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DENNIS ROSS: STOP BLAMING THE PALESTINIANS 

by Richard Forer

 

Dennis Ross has done it again. In “Stop Giving Palestinians a Pass” (NY Times, January 4, 2015), he blames the Palestinians for the lack of peace with Israel. Citing “three serious negotiations”– the 2000 Clinton parameters, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s 2008 proposal, and the recently ended negotiations led by Secretary of State John Kerry – Ross implies that Palestinian refusal to compromise spoiled each of these opportunities. 

I remember when Ross appeared on the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour in 2000 and claimed that the collapse of that year’s Camp David Summit was due to unreasonable demands Yasser Arafat had made of the Israelis. Ross’s commentary was the decisive advantage that I, an American Jew, seized upon to convince Israel’s critics that the Jewish community’s long-held belief that Israel had always wanted peace but the Palestinians did not was unequivocally true. Years later, I discovered that Ross’s claim was disputed by many observers, including Israeli negotiators, who characterized Ross as more pro-Israel than they were.

Editorials & Actions

A Palestinian’s New Year’s Message

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To all those who yearn for peace with justice  

from Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh

Happy new Year 2015. May it bring all of you peace (internal peace at
least!). We Palestinians have one top wish for 2015 as in every year
since 1917: freedom. Freedom means self determination, it means
refugees will be finally allowed to return home. Freedom means I can
go to my city of Jerusalem without having to hide from checkpoints and
walk around walls.

Editorials & Actions

The Struggle for the Soul of Islam

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Who Is A Muslim? An Intense Struggle within the Muslim World for the Soul of Islam
By Dr Abdul Cader Asmal for New Age Islam

15 Dec 2014

Well before Cheryl Bernard concocted her whimsical compartmentalization of Muslims into arbitrary categories (1), and Nathan Lean cautioned Muslims not to be defined by non-Muslims (2), there was and is an intense struggle within the Muslim world for the soul of Islam. This review attempts to analyze the claims of the various sects and movements within Islam, to find the common denominators that bind them together, to identify the conflicting views that tear them asunder, to acknowledge the heinous acts that cast them outside the pale of Islam, and to end up hopefully with a definition of who really is a Muslim! A Muslim is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic religion that is the complete universal and final version of a faith that has been revealed through many prophets including Abraham, Moses, Ishmael, Isaac, Jesus and finally Mohammed. “Muslim” is an Arabic word meaning ‘one who submits to God’.  Muslims believe that God is eternal, transcendent, and absolutely One.

Editorials & Actions

Uri Avnery update from Israel during Chanukah 2014

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Uri Avnery

December 20, 2015
                                                Splendid Isolation
 

ALMOST A thousand Israeli personalities have already signed an appeal to European parliaments for their governments to recognize the State of Palestine. 

I am honored to be among the signatories, which include former ministers and members of the Knesset, diplomats and generals, artists and businessmen, writers and poets, including Israel’s three outstanding writers Amos Oz, David Grossman and A. B. Yehoshua. We believe that the independence of the Palestinian people in a state of their own, next to the State of Israel, is the basis for peace, and therefore as important for Israelis as it is for Palestinians. This, by the way, has been my firm conviction ever since the 1948 war. The extreme right wing, which has ruled Israel in recent years, holds the opposite belief. Since it wants to turn the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River into the “nation-state of the Jewish people”, it totally rejects the setting up of a Palestinian state.

Editorials & Actions

Strategy to Deal with Racist Police Forces by Reginald Lyles

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For Whom the Bell Tolls
by John Donne and Reginald Lyles

Reginald W. Lyles  is 1.  the Senior Advisor for public safety to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan; 2.  a retired career law enforcement officer (Command level); 3.  a 30+-year Deacon of Allen Temple Baptist Church – one of the largest African-American churches in the country; 4.  and a recent Master of Community and Leadership Divinity graduate and Bible Scholar Award-winner of the American Baptist Seminary of the West. Deacon Lyles teaches, trains and advises churches, governmental, and non-governmental organizations locally and across the country on public safety and civil and human rights. No man is an island,

Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

Editorials & Actions

The Year of Sustainable Development by Jeffrey Sachs

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The Year of Sustainable Development
by Jeffrey Sachs                             December 9, 2014

NEW YORK – The year 2015 will be our generation’s greatest opportunity to move the world toward sustainable development. Three high-level negotiations between July and December can reshape the global development agenda, and give an important push to vital changes in the workings of the global economy. With United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call to action in his report “The Road to Dignity,” the Year of Sustainable Development has begun. In July 2015, world leaders will meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to chart reforms of the global financial system. In September 2015, they will meet again to approve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide national and global policies to 2030.

Editorials & Actions

Black Lives Matter

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We at Tikkun Magazine urge you to read Rabbi Lerner’s impassioned plea on Huffington Post to stand with African Americans this Sunday morning when they have called for a Solidarity Sunday in suport of the position that Black Lives Matter. It’s a nonviolent and sweet way to show solidarity with our African American brothers and sisters, many of whom have felt largely abandoned by the rest of society as they listen to equivocal statements from President Obama and denials that there is any problem of racism by many in the media and politics. If you live in the Bay Area, look below for some relevant places to attend church services that morning [though many of us, like myself, are not Christian–but solidarity requires going to one of the major places in which African Americans will be seeking support this weekend as the media switches the focus, leaving behind the ongoing problem of American racism,  to focus (importantly) on the torture crimes of the Bush and Obama Administration–can you believe that Obama, through his Sec. of State Kerry, tried to convince the Senate not to release this report ‘at this time’ which would have left it in the hands of a Republican Senate that would have never released it?]. We have made that solidarity a theme of our Reclaim America conference that afternoon Dec.

Editorials & Actions

Invite to “Reclaim America–Strategy Conference” Dec. 14

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From Tikkun Magazine www.tikkun.org, the Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org, and the Metta Center for Non-violence

The new Congress is going to be a catastrophe for the environment and for those most dependent on everything from social security, safety and health protections for our food and work places, safety for our personal deposits in banks and financial institutions and Obamacare to social programs that provide some minimal protections from the worst impact of the competitive marketplace, not only for the poor and the powerless, but also for most of us in the middle class. That’s one reason it’s so important for you to come and invite everyone you know to a 6 hour strategy conference aimed at developing strategy for the years ahead (and if you know anyone in the media, contact them too and ask them to make sure this event gets covered–it’s a rare public confrontation by liberals and progressives of the need to rethink our direction, so it’s newsworthy though media people hate to “work” on Sunday).  You’ve probably been at many meetings focused on “what’s wrong,” but this one is focused on “what we can do to change the dynamics in American society,” in short, strategizing in place of whining and blaming everyone else for why we are not winning. After the 2014 elections and facing a Congress determined to dismantle environmental protections and health and social benefits for middle income Americans and the poor in 2015-2016, 
it’s critical that ethically sensitive people develop a strategy to:
RECLAIM AMERICA
YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN
A Town Hall Meeting & Strategy Discussion
 Sunday December 14, 1 p.m.
At the University of San Francisco McLaren Hall
(Golden Gate Ave near Roselyn Terrace)
(If you can’t come, would you organize a similar event in your area–and some of us might be available to come to speak. For more info: cat@spiritualprogressives.org)
Among the presenters at our strategy conference:
Marianne Williamson Author: Healing the Soul of America, A Return to Love, and Imagine What America Could Be in the 21st Century 
George Lakoff Prof of Cognitive Science and Linguistics, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant and Moral Politics,  
Rabbi Michael Lerner Editor of Tikkun, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, Author: The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right and Spirit Matters,
  Matthew Fox Liberation Theologian, Author of Original Blessing, and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ
 Cat Zavis Attorney, Executive Director, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and teacher of Empathic Communication
Other speakers that day include: Reginald W. Lyles (from Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland former advisor to Assemblyman Sandre Swanson), liberation theologian Jorge Aquino (of the Theology and Religious Studies Dept. of USF), Oakland city council chair Rebecca Kaplan and more.

Editorials & Actions

Reclaim America Conference Dec. 14

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After the 2014 Elections and Facing a Congress determined to dismantle environmental, health and social benefits for middle income Americans and the poor in 2015-2016
It’s critical that ethically sensitive people develop a strategy to:
RECLAIM AMERICA YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN
A Town Hall Meeting & Strategy Discussion
 Sunday December 14, 1 p.m.
At the University of San Francisco McLaren Hall
(Golden Gate Ave near Roselyn Terrace)
Among the presenters at our strategy conference:
 Mathew Fox Liberation Theologian, Author of Original Blessing, and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ
Rebecca Kaplan Oakland City Council President,
George Lakoff Prof of Cognitive Science and Linguistics, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant and Moral Politics,  
Rabbi Michael Lerner Editor of Tikkun, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, Author: The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right and Spirit Matters,
Marianne Williamson, author: Healing the Soul of America, A Return to Love, and Imagine What America Could Be in the 21st Century, ,
Cat Zavis Attorney, Executive Director, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and teacher of Empathic Communication
And more. (Our speakers will start the discussion, but the most important person to be there is YOU). Pre-registration at:   spiritualprogressives.org/reclaimAmerica
The Congress that will shape America in the next two years is committed to defunding government  so that it cannot  enforce the minimal environmental protections currently in place, provide health care coverage for those who need it,so that it, provide safety and health protection for our food or for our work places, or protect the old, the young, the vulnerable—while at the same time that Congress will seek to decrease still further the taxes on the super-rich and the corporations they own and control. This is an ethical and spiritual and religious crisis of monumental proportions—and calls for secular liberals and progressives to join with spiritual or religious activists to work together to develop strategies to save our planet earth and protect middle income and working people and the unemployed from the assaults of the selfish. That’s why we, spiritual progressives of every variant (including atheists and secular humanists as well as people in every religious community) must  now take action to present a different worldview, one based on the Biblical call to “love our neighbor” but also “love the stranger (the Other/the powerless)., to pursue justice and peace.

Editorials & Actions

After Ferguson

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Repetitive Motion Disorder: Black Reality and White Denial in America
by Tim Wise
I suppose there is no longer much point in debating the facts surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown. First, because Officer Darren Wilson has been cleared by a grand jury, and even the collective brilliance of a thousand bloggers pointing out the glaring inconsistencies in his version of events that August day won’t result in a different outcome. And second, because Wilson’s guilt or innocence was always somewhat secondary to the larger issue: namely, the issue of this gigantic national inkblot staring us in the face, and what we see when we look at it—and more to the point, why? Because it is a kind of racial Rorschach (is it not?) into which each of these cases—not just Brown but all the others, from Trayvon Martin to Sean Bell to Patrick Dorismond to Aswan Watson and beyond—inevitably and without fail morph. That we see such different things when we look upon them must mean something.

Editorials & Actions

Ferguson and American Racism After the Killer of Michael Brown Goes Free

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This is a sad day. The grand jury’s decision is yet another sign that all of America’s sons’ lives are not yet valued equally in the eyes of our courts. All of America’s fathers, mothers and children should stay outraged and in motion for progress until we are finally what we say we are: One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All. We must finally ensure police can be held accountable for killing unarmed civilians. We must win national standards for both the use of force and use of force training.

Editorials & Actions

U.S. Misguided Policy Assumptions Out of Touch With the World’s Reality

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5 Bedrock Washington Assumptions That Are Hot Air

by Andrew Bacevich

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

“Iraq no longer exists.” My young friend M, sipping a cappuccino, is deadly serious. We are sitting in a scruffy restaurant across the street from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.  It’s been years since we’ve last seen each another. It may be years before our paths cross again. As if to drive his point home, M repeats himself: “Iraq just doesn’t exist.”

His is an opinion grounded in experience.  As an enlisted soldier, he completed two Iraq tours, serving as a member of a rifle company, before and during the famous Petraeus “surge.”  After separating from the Army, he went on to graduate school where he is now writing a dissertation on insurgencies.  Choosing the American war in Iraq as one of his cases, M has returned there to continue his research.  Indeed, he was heading back again that very evening.  As a researcher, his perch provides him with an excellent vantage point for taking stock of the ongoing crisis, now that the Islamic State, or IS, has made it impossible for Americans to sustain the pretense that the Iraq War ever ended.

Editorials & Actions

China Overtakes the US as World’s Largest Economy

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China’s New Global Leadership
 by Jeffrey D. Sachs

The biggest economic news of the year came almost without notice: China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy, according to the scorekeepers at the International Monetary Fund. And, while China’s geopolitical status is rising rapidly, alongside its economic might, the US continues to squander its global leadership, owing to the unchecked greed of its political and economic elites and the self-made trap of perpetual war in the Middle East. According to the IMF, China’s GDP will be $17.6 trillion in 2014, outstripping US output of $17.4 trillion. Of course, because China’s population is more than four times larger, its per capita GDP, at $12,900, is still less than a quarter of the $54,700 recorded in the US, which highlights America’s much higher living standards. China’s rise is momentous, but it also signifies a return.