Jewish Wisdom
Mitzvah Begets Mitzvah, Sin Begets Sin
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A midrashic reflection on the end of the war in Afghanistan.
Jewish Wisdom
Publicizing the Miracle or Publicizing Miracle? R. Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev on Hanukkah
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A response to Jeffrey Goldberg’s critique of Rashida Tlaib’s Hanukkah greeting using a text by R. Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev.
Jewish Wisdom
The King, His Son, and the Danger Bell – (A Parable)
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Where is God and where is humanity? Shaul Magid helps us address this thru his translation of Kalonymous Kalman’s parable Derekh Ha-Melekh.
Politics & Society
An Apologia for Post-Bernieism
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Shaul Magid argues that the primaries will shape which worldview will predominate in public discourse in the coming years, so don’t make it about the specific strengths or weaknesses of the current candidates that are articulating these different worldviews.
Jewish Wisdom
Why Peter Schäfer’s Resignation as Director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin Matters
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Shaul Magid warns of the dangers of “policing boundaries whereby distinctions between anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism, between Jews and Israel, are erased.”
Jewish Wisdom
The Politics of Miracle
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In his reading and translation of Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Charlap, Shaul Magid aruges that the true miracle of the exodus from Egypt is the possibility of revolution.
Justice for All
Jewing the State of the Union
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Shaul Magid explains how Trump used the Holocaust to manipulate hatred against refugees and immigrants.
Social Gospel or Prosperity Gospel: A Forum
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Shaul Magid argues––and other scholars respond to his claim––that “American Jews are fighting an uphill battle against privilege at the same time many are devoted to maintaining it.”
Arts & Cultural Critique
Thoughts on Philip Roth: America, Jew, Male
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Shaul Magid on Philip Roth, his relationship to his Jewish identity, and his legacy.
Race
Louis Farrakhan, Meir Kahane, and the Politics of Purity
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Shaul Magid addresses the corrosive, divisive nature of purity politics on the left and why a more nuanced approached is needed.
Articles
Who Gets to Speak about Anti-Semitism? “Anti-Semitism and the Struggle for Justice” at the New School for Social Research
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These panelists have right to talk about anti-Semitism the same way they have a right to talk about gender disparity, and racism, and police brutality, and poverty. Because in all of those, and more, they are in the streets fighting every day.
Articles
Reflections on a Panel on anti-Semitism
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Editor’s note: Shaul Magid answers below a set of criticisms being published in other Jewish publications about a forum on anti-Semitism sponsored by JVP, the leading Jewish organization supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in the Jewish world. Tikkun has not endorsed BDS, and our readers have a wide variety of different opinions about its wisdom as a strategy to achieve what we do endorse–peace and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians–but we do support the right of others to support those versions of BDS that do not seek to end the existence of the State of Israel. We plan to have a fuller discussion of BDS in a forthcoming Tikkun focused mostly on its wisdom as a strategy. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
Who Gets to Speak about Anti-Semitism? “Anti-Semitism and the Struggle for Justice” at the New School for Social Research
By Shaul Magid
On the evening of November 28th, 2017 the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, an institution long devoted to progressive politics and cultural critique, held an event entitled “Anti-Semitism and the Struggle for Justice.” It was in part a celebration of the book On Anti-Semitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice published in 2017 by Haymarket Books sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace. There were four panelists in attendance; Lou Ferguson who works for Jewish for Racial and Economic Justice, Lina Moralis a Chicago-based Latinx-Ashkenazi Jewish activist who identifies as bi-racial and who is openly anti-Zionist, Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of JVP, a progressive Jewish organization that supports BDS against Israel, and Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour.
“I’m Crazy, but I’m Normal”: The Banality of Baruch Marzel
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Shaul Magid reviews the film “A Radical Jew” by Noam Osband. Arendt was accused of diminishing Eichmann’s evil by claiming it was banal. But maybe the reverse is true. Maybe the banality of evil is actually the most dangerous kind.
32.2 Spring
Is “Land for Peace” Legitimate? Reflections on the Six-Day War, 50 Years Later
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A FEW YEARS AGO I was riding in a car with an Israeli friend on Highway Six in Israel, a fairly new road that runs north-south through the middle of the country. Somewhere along the way I saw a section of the Security Wall just off in the distance. I asked him why they built the wall there. He responded, “Simple. To prevent them from throwing stones at us—and to prevent us from seeing what we are doing to them.” It was an honest response, perhaps too honest, of what it is like to live in today’s divided Israel, in a situation that each side justifies in a manner that only increases its corrosive nature.