Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2014/07/page/6/)
Once again the violence of the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza and the violence of Hamas and other extremist groups in Gaza have combined to create a spiraling violence. We call upon both sides to agree to an immediate cease fire.
Seemingly insurmountable gaps in political solutions to repair immigration policy along with Congressional inaction to the point of blockage have brought the country to the point of crisis.
Years of stifled anger and silenced pain are finally rising to the surface as Warren Blumenfeld reflects on the responsibilities and obligations dominant groups have to dismantle the forms of oppression and unearned privileges not accorded to those outside, who are often viewed as the “other.”
As the Israel/Palestine conflict reaches new heights of bloodshed and carnage, one author is impacted by Ali Abunimah’s book, “The Battle for Justice in Palestine” and Abunimah’s proposal of a bi-nation state as the only possible and just solution to heal Israel and Palestine.
We invited people in the Tikkun community to share some memories of their personal connections to Zalman. We cannot publish them all—so many hundreds of people pouring out their wonderful experiences and wishing to honor this great Tzaddik! So we’ve selected a representative sample.
A letter to Walmart on the sales of a poster-size photograph of the front gate of Camp Dachau in Bavaria, Germany with its (in)famous inscription Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Will Set You Free), which Walmart declares “would make a great addition to your home or office.”
The last several days have been devastating. The weeks leading up to it have been horrifying. Since the beginning of the Israel’s Operation Protective Edge on July 8, 2014 upwards of eighty Palestinians have been killed and approximately 500 wounded by Israeli missiles and two Israelis have been wounded from rockets fired from Gaza. We have watched with sadness and anger as the deaths of children have mounted, racist mobs have rampaged, the fears of people throughout both Israel and Palestine have reached unbearable levels, and the collective punishment of the Palestinian people has intensified.
Israel has dropped 800 tons of explosives on Gaza, a strip of land roughly the size of Detroit. The official death toll currently stands at 81, the majority of whom are civilians and half of whom are women and children. Those who are ready and willing to reckon with root causes must not be content to simply accept these bi-annual military onslaughts as simply the price of Jewish nationhood.
In Murrieta, California protesters have taken to the streets spewing hateful words and bigotry in protest of the arrival of migrants from Central America. We sometimes speak as if the mere passage of time has elevated us above the bigotry of previous generations. It hasn’t.
New In the wake of the foul Supreme Court decision Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, we may need to start worrying about how thoroughly religion dictates human rights and which religion(s) shares disproportionate power.