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Urban Pastorals
Clive Wilmer
Worple Press, 2014
In this short, rich book of prose poems, Clive Wilmer renews the pastoral tradition by eschewing romantic idealizations and coming into contact with the living image of an Eden corrupted by natural processes. Those processes, which connect us to the mystery of life and spirit, include both the workings of memory and the mechanisms of civilization.
Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age
James Carroll
Viking, 2014
The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu
HarperOne, 2014
James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword unveiled to many Christians the sordid way that Christian institutions transformed Jesus’s message of liberation into a doctrine to support imperial domination and the persecution of Jews. In this newer book, Carroll attempts to reclaim the prophetic voice of Jesus that is rooted in Jewish messianism: “Recovering that sense of Christian Jewishness, like recovering the Jewishness of Jesus, defines the essential work that Christians must do in a post-Auschwitz world.” Throughout this powerful and insightful presentation of the ways a Christian can be “faithful to the classical tradition of Christian faith while simultaneously limiting assertion about (Jesus) to a modern—or postmodern—mind,” Carroll reads Christian texts from a contemporary perspective, in light of the distortions that led to the destructive misuse of these texts in the past. Contemporary Christians can take special pride in the work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the outspoken Christian activist whose challenge to apartheid won him the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu became the chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which sought to lead his country beyond the pain and anger that had festered under racist oppression. This beautiful and insightful book should be part of the school curriculum in every country of the world.
The Soul of Jewish Social Justice by Shmuly Yanklowitz
The online exclusives below are freely accessible articles that are part of an ongoing special series associated with Tikkun’s Spring 2015 print issue, The Place of Hope in an Age of Climate Disaster. Many of our most provocative articles on this topic appeared in that print issue, which is only accessible to subscribers. Subscribe now to read the subscriber-only print articles on the web (explore the table of contents to see what you’re missing!). If you appreciate the free web-only articles below, please do enable us to keep up this important work by becoming a print subscriber or offering a donation. Diversity is the Lifeline for the Future of the Climate Movement
by Mijin Cha
Hinduism and Honoring Creation
by Chris Fici
Social Justice, the Environment, and Sikhs
by Sumeet Kaur
Let’s Establish the New Moon and Full Moon as Holidays of Earth Preservation
by Ron Feldman
Hope in the Age of Climate Consequences
by Kate Davies
What Does Sustainability Feel Like?
A NOTE ON LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
We welcome your responses to our articles. Send your letters to the editor to letters@tikkun.org. Please remember, however, not to attribute to Tikkun views other than those expressed in our editorials. We email, post, and print many articles with which we have strong disagreements, because that is what makes Tikkun a location for a true diversity of ideas. Tikkun reserves the right to edit your letters to fit available space in the magazine.
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This quarterly issue of the magazine is available both online and in hard copy. Everyone can read the first few paragraphs of each piece, but the full articles are only available to subscribers and NSP members — subscribe or join now to read the rest! You can also buy a paper copy of this single print issue. Members and subscribers also get online access to the current issue and all archives. If you are a member or subscriber who needs guidance on how to register, email miriam@tikkun.org or call 510-644-1200 for help — registration is easy and you only have to do it once.
As the earth heats up, sea levels rise, and thousands of species face extinction, it’s easy to boomerang between denial and despair.
This collection of pieces was born out of the debates modeled by the Open Hillel conference. Some essays represent voices or ideas that are currently excluded by the Standards of Partnership, some discuss the challenges presented by the Open Hillel movement, some tell personal stories of political transformation, and some discuss the historical diversity of Jewish opinions about Zionism. The collection represents a taste of the vibrancy of Jewish opinion, ideas, and debate that the Open Hillel movement is working to revive. These essays represent the beginning, not the end, of a new kind of conversation.
Saul Berman | Congregation Beth Israel, Berkeley, CA
Solomon S. Bernards | Anti-Defamation League
William Braude | Temple Beth-El, Providence, R.I.
Maurice Davis | Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation
Maurice Eisendrath | president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations
William Frankel | Beth Hillel Congregation, Wilmette, Illinois
Albert Friedlander | rabbi for Jewish students at Columbia University
Jerome Grollman | United Hebrew Congregation, St. Louis
Joseph Gumbiner | director of UC-Berkeley’s Hillel
Leon Jick | Free Synagogue of Westchester, Mt. Vernon, N.Y.
Wolfe Kelman | Rabbinical Assembly
Saul Leeman | Cranston Jewish Center, Rhode Island
Arthur Lelyveld | Fairmount Temple, Cleveland
Allan Levine | Temple Emanuel, Rochester, N.Y.
Israel Mowshowitz | Hillcrest Jewish Center, New York
Gerald Raiskin | Peninsula Temple Sholom, Burlingame, CA
Steven Riskin | Lincoln Square Synagogue, New York
Nathan Rosen | director of Brown University’s Hillel
Sanford Rosen | Temple Beth El, San Mateo, CA
Murry Saltzman | Temple Beth-El, Chappaqua, N.Y.
Sidney Shanken | Temple Beth-El, Cranford, N.J.
Matthew Simon | Temple Ramah, Los Angeles
Herbert Teitelbaum | Temple Beth Jacob, Redwood City, CA
Andre Ungar | Temple Emanuel, Pascack Valley, N.J.
Joseph Weinberg | Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco
Perry Nussbaum | Temple Beth Israel in Jackson, MS, was bombed in 1967
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Inside Syria
Reese Erlich
Prometheus Books, 2014
The Darker Side of Western Modernity
Walter D. Mignolo
Duke University Press, 2011
To many Westerners, the Middle East seems more confounding each day. How could the killings get any worse, the struggles more irrational? When the rebellion of Syria’s people against the oppressive Assad dictatorship suddenly turned into a civil war, thus giving strength to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the confusion only worsened. Reese Erlich, a prominent independent journalist, begins to unpack some of our questions. Setting the current struggles in the context of the world powers that created Syria, Erlich demonstrates how the histories and dynamics of international struggles are indispensible for understanding the current realities.
The Books of Jonathan: Four Men, One God
Gary Levinson
Self-Published, 2014
If you are itching to get away from the contemporary world, here’s a fun and steamy route: a hot gay love story based in part on an imaginative reconstruction of the relationship between Jonathan (the eldest son of King Saul) and Saul’s antagonist, David, who eventually overthrows Saul and becomes the founder of the dynasty that by legend is destined ultimately to produce the Messiah. Author Gary Levinson explores questions of faith and nationhood in a historical novel that provides a fun escape from the frustrations of the present even as it smashes any romanticization of the past.
Absolution: A Palestinian Israeli Love Story
R.F. Georgy
Parthenon Books, 2014
The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust
Noam Chayut
Verso, 2013
In the wake of Israel’s bloody struggle in Gaza, it may be healing to read Absolution—a Palestinian Israeli love story by R.F. Georgy that rehumanizes what media reports reduce to political sloganeering. Here you can reconnect with the human spirit, transcending the normal boundaries of political positions to momentarily rekindle your belief in love. Another story that offers hope in this moment is Israeli Noam Chayut’s memoir of his life as a young soldier on the front line of Operation Defensive Shield, a devastating offensive against Gaza by Israel. Chayut’s memoir takes you into the inner life of a principled and caring soldier whose acceptance of the standard narrative of the Holocaust initially allows him to believe that Israel’s wars are necessary and just. His views start to change when his encounter with a Palestinian village shatters his certainty and he comes to question the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the necessity of the Occupation.
Absolution: A Palestinian Israeli Love Story by R. F. Georgy
The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust by Noam Chayut
In the wake of Israel’s bloody struggle in Gaza, it may be healing to read Absolution—a Palestinian Israeli love story by R.F. Georgy that rehumanizes what media reports reduce to political sloganeering. Here you can reconnect with the human spirit, transcending the normal boundaries of political positions to momentarily rekindle your belief in love. Another story that offers hope in this moment is Israeli Noam Chayut’s memoir of his life as a young soldier on the front line of Operation Defensive Shield, a devastating offensive against Gaza by Israel. Chayut’s memoir takes you into the inner life of a principled and caring soldier whose acceptance of the standard narrative of the Holocaust initially allows him to believe that Israel’s wars are necessary and just.
by Michael Edwards, Jonathan Brandow, Brian D. McLaren
The Days Between
Marcia Falk
Brandeis University Press, 2014
Marcia Falk’s collection of blessings, poems, and “directions of the heart” for the Jewish High Holiday season is another gem by this inspired poet, whose Book of Blessings was an inspiration to a generation of feminists and their allies. With matching pages of Hebrew and English, Falk has captured some of the rich wisdom of Jewish spirituality that permeates the High Holiday prayer book (machzor), translating it into a language accessible even to resolute atheists.