Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/uncategorized/page/5/)
FEW WOULD TAKE ISSUE today with the claim that religious Zionism is the most particularistic and self-centered of contemporary Jewish identities. While many streams of Judaism and Zionism place the well-being of humanity at the center of their world view, mainstream religious Zionism seems only concerned with Jews.
If you want to taste some of the diversity and complexity in Jewish thought, these four books offer a wonderful way in. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Geraldine Brooks brings the reader into the mind of Natan, one of Judaism’s earliest prophets, as he tries to make sense of his own life as a collaborator and spiritual guide to a murderous King David who managed to conquer and then create Jerusalem as the Jewish people’s fantasized “eternal capital.” Unlike many of the prophets who eventually had a book written by or about them in the Bible, Natan shows up only in the stories about King David, most significantly when he challenges David for having stolen Batsheva by sending her husband, a commander in David’s army, to a mission designed to be certain death. This was the classic moment of speaking truth to power at the risk of having that power also kill the truth-teller. Building on the Bible, but with her own imaginative creativity, Brooks brings us to the midst of the intrigues that is said to be the family of a future messiah. Eleven hundred years later a similar courage contributed to making Rabbi Akiva, one of the most important figures in the Talmud, a folk hero because of his refusal to abandon the practice and teaching of Judaism commanded by the Roman occupiers of Judea.
A NOTE ON LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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Aviva Zornberg’s ‘Moses: A Human Life’
This Summer 2017 edition of Tikkun has several articles focusing on the trauma that the Trump presidency has generated. While many liberals and progressives responded to this trauma and horror in the earlier months with mass demonstrations and a commitment to resistance, it soon became clear that, as important as they were for reviving the spirit of people on the left, the demonstrations did not make much of a dent in the consciousness of the tens of millions of people who voted for Trump. Moreover, the liberal and progressive forces continue to demean, shame and blame all those who did not vote for Democrats in the 2016 election. This takes the form of suggesting that all of these tens of millions of people who voted “the wrong way” did so because they are racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, coarse, bullies or just ignorant. These characterizations do not fit everyone that voted Trump, though they may describe some of his supporters, and a large number of the people he has appointed to key positions in his Administration.
SOMETIMES THE BEST STORIES come to you when you least expect it. At least that’s the way it happened to me.
For those searching, however, for a deeper understanding of both the causes and cures of our current moment in history, we must look far beyond Trump to find our way out of this time of injustice and violence.
Chapter One
And yes, a new king rose over Egypt
a rabid creature in the shape of a man
without a conscience
a man with small hands
a rubbery pink mouth
that poured lies like oil
emitted hate like carbon dioxide
greedy to devour men, women and children
an abomination
And the spirits of the women rose up,
and on a determined day they marched
in the capital city and many other cities
they marched for kindness
and dignity in this world
they filled the streets and highways
with love and song
they took photographs of each other’s clever signs
they mocked the king
they marched with babies and men of good heart
they rallied
they returned to their homes
but the king was still there—the king still sat
on his throne of money
Chapter Two
—with a nod to “Paradise Lost,” Book II
A stroke of the pen
what good what harm
a stroke of the pen
like a twist of the arm
a stroke of the pen
like a puppy’s turd
a stroke of the pen
many acts of murder
A stroke of the pen
in the war against women
the smirks of the men
are always well-hidden
Except for the man
most powerful on the earth
finger above the button
he smirks and smirks and smirks
A stroke of the pen—
a keyboard tap
in the devil’s den
the devil’s crap.
The text above was just an excerpt. The web versions of our print articles are now hosted by Duke University Press, Tikkun’s publisher. Click here to read an HTML version of the article. Click here to read a PDF version of the full article. Tikkun 2017 Volume 32, Number 3:18-19
SINCE THE Donald Trump election victory, I have spoken to hundreds of students in my UCLA identity community. Most have expressed severe distress, telling me of their anxieties about the future. Young women and men seeking to work for environmental change, for racial and gender justice, or to pursue creative careers in the arts have been disheartened by Trump’s retrograde actions and appointments and his sexist, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric before and since his inauguration. I share these reactions entirely. But these conversations have taken a far grimmer turn when I discuss Trump and his policies with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students, Muslim students, and others whose anxieties are more immediate and more intimately personal.
I WANT TO APOLOGIZE. To my students who are new immigrants from countries on Trump’s list of banned peoples. To my students from Somalia and Iraq, Iran and Sudan. To those who came here as refugees from Bosnia, most of them Muslim, and also from Myanmar, also Muslims. I want to apologize to all of my Muslim students. And to my Nepali students who were forced to leave Bhutan because of their ethnicity and because they are Hindus.