Jewish Wisdom

Akiba…a Passover poem by Muriel Rukeyser

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One of the great poems of the 20th century — surely the greatest American Jewish poem. It should be read during Passover (it begins with a celebration of the Exodus) and celebrates the Jewish tradition but reaches far beyond it to the whole of Humanity.

Editorials & Actions

Rabbis for Human Rights: Passover reflections from Rabbi Arik Aschermann

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I’d like to share an annual Passover message from the courageous leader of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel, Rabbi Arik Aschermann of Jerusalem. On this Passover holiday I invite you to become our fellow provocateurs by making a generous donation to Rabbis for Human Rights. Passover/Shabbat HaGadol Thoughts
by Rabbi Arik Ascherman

On Saturday night a Ta’ayush activist called me right after Shabbat ended. In a choked up voice he told me about the day’s events I had not witnessed because of the fact that I am Shabbat observant. Thanks to the work of our OT legal staff the valley of T’wamin was filled with Palestinian shepherds and their flocks for the first time in over ten years.

Editorials & Actions

The Budget Battles–from the standpoint of progressives

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The budget is an ethical and spiritual issue–it is the concrete manifestation of our values both as individuals who vote for the candidates who shape the budget, and as a society. Below a few progressives make sense of the budget battles we are facing in the coming months. Budget Battles: Sound, Fury and Fakery
by Richard D. Wolff

Weeks of highly publicized debates — some in Congress, more in the mass media — brought Republicans and Democrats to a budget deal.  To maximize public attention, they threatened a possible government shutdown.  Both parties said that large government deficits and accumulated debt were “serious problems.”

Editorials & Actions

Goldstone and the Israelis — an Analysis by Uri Avnery

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THE REAL question about Cast Lead is not whether individual soldiers did commit such crimes. They sure did – any army is composed of all types of human beings, decent youngsters with a moral conscience besides sadists, imbeciles and others suffering from moral insanity. In a war you give all of them arms and a license to kill, and the results can be foreseen. That is one reason why “war is hell”.

Editorials & Actions

Rethinking Goldstone?

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In light of the recent Washington Post op-ed in which Goldstone seemed to be retreating on some of what his UN report on Israeli and Hamas human rights violations took place during Israel’s invasion of Gaza in Dec. 2008 and Jan. 2009, Tikkun author Mitchell Plitnick provides us with a way to think of what we like to call our “progressive middle path” that is both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, and critical of both sides as well.

Jewish Wisdom

Passover Haggadah Supplement 2011

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In this year of uprising in Egypt what does the Passover story have to say to us? What would liberation throughout the world mean? FOR YOUR SEDER, here is a Haggadah supplement — not a replacement. If you don’t normally do a Seder, you can use this supplement as the basis for an interfaith gathering in your home on April 18, the first night of Passover, or on any of the other nights of Passover until it ends on April 26. Many people read part or all of this at any Seder they attend, sometimes going around and having a different person read each paragraph.

Editorials & Actions

Jerusalem Bombing

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We at Tikkun view with horror and outrage the latest bus bombing in Jerusalem. Nothing can make murderous attacks on civilians justified. And nothing does more to freeze people into their fear and certainty that the other side is so barbarian that there is no possibility of achieving peace, so why bother? We at Tikkun unequivocally condemn this morally despicable action.

Editorials & Actions

Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown

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There is no justice in the fact that one group — the Japanese people — has so disproportionately suffered the consequences of the sinful arrogance of those who have recklessly taken the atom and misused it for war and for profit. On the face of it, there was nothing inherently wrong with the human race considering atomic energy as one possible source of energy among others. But that consideration should have taken place in the context of a deep religious and spiritual recognition that these forces are so enormous and their use such a powerful transformation of nature that they have to be approached with reverence, awe, and a sense that we are dealing with the sacred powers of the universe. We should have been willing to consider the possibility that splitting atoms may have potential consequences so beyond our capacity to rationally predict that atomic energy shouldn’t be tapped at all. And the choice should have been made by people filled with humility and a desire to benefit everyone on the planet not just in this generation but in millennia to come.