Environment

Discovering a Jewish Environmental Ethic During Tu B’Shvat

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by Peter D. Goldberg
The Obama administration appeared serious about confronting looming environmental crises, especially global warming and resource depletion. With the new Congress challenged by science doubters and industrial supporters, the prospect of critical reform is considerably compromised. But political and technological adjustments may well not be enough to confront humanity’s ecological challenges anyway. Fundamental personal lifestyle changes, particularly in our Western materialistic values and consumer-oriented ways, may be necessary. Judaism has much of relevance to say on this.Such profound changes, whether dictated by prudence or disaster, will ultimately prove as much spiritual in character as political and economic.

Environment

Where are the Jewish Greens?

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By Devorah Brous
Jewish environmentalists have elevated a minor symbolic mystical ritual of holding a Tu B’Shvat Seder into an annual and provocative communal celebration. This week is Tu B’Shvat – the Jewish Earth Day that is traditionally marked by planting trees and eating their fruits in the dead of winter to symbolize that lifeforce will again rise to bear fruits in what appears dormant. In advance of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) tree planting activities this Tu B’Shvat, the Bedouin village of Al Arakib was once again demolished. For the ninth time. This time, rubber bullets and batons were used by Israeli police in riot gear.

art

Raw Form and Beauty: Communing with Allah in the Natural World

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by Akile Kabir

To see more of Davi Barker’s work, visit the Tikkun Daily Art Gallery and the artist’s website. The clarity of composition and richness of color in Davi Barker’s work were what struck me first. Then, as I began to reflect on his art, I noticed the serenity of his paintings, which juxtapose Islamic calligraphy and sites with beautiful, surreal panoramas. The paintings featured in Barker’s exhibit on Tikkun Daily are products of his experimentation with a combination of digital and fine art mediums. The scenes of nature or Islamic architecture may appear to be realistic landscapes or still lifes, but they also have a supernatural quality. Take for instance, the onion-shaped domes that dramatically emerge against cloudy skies, or the pristine smoothness of sand dunes, warmly bathed in sunlight.

art

Bittersweet

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By Barbara Bash from her blog True Nature today:
Sitting in this quiet studio
(husband and son off on their adventures in the world)
as snow falls steadily outside. Hours spent this morning on the phone and computer,
attending to – caring for – relationships. Now I turn to the strand of bittersweet,
clipped and unwound from the rose brambles,
waiting for me . . .

art

A Strong and Demanding Love: Art as a Force for Social Transformation

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by Evan Bissell
“In doing this, lets create some love through the work and be able to accept our differences and the conditions of our lives…Whatever we create with those eyes on that paper, let that be acceptance of our experiences and move to that point of forgiveness.” — Vonteak, a participant in the What Cannot Be Taken Away project
“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” — Audre Lorde
Vonteak, one of eight collaboratively designed portraits. 5′ x 8′ Acrylic and oil pastel. In a short cinderblock room at the San Francisco jail, eight fathers and I told the life story of fresh satsuma mandarins that we held in our hands.

Politics & Society

Responsibility instead of Tax Demagoguery

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Neil Hanson continues his series of posts about the shared ground he sees between progressives and those he calls “true conservatives.”We would also like to draw your attention to Paul Krugman’s column “When Zombies Win” today, which clarifies the danger of President Obama compromising on ideology, not just on actions taken. By Neil Hanson
Like an addict who can’t focus on anything but his drug once it’s time to feed his addiction, Congress has whipped itself into a frenzy to once again do the bidding of the right-wing media, and continue to draw the knife of certain bankruptcy across the throat of the American future. This knife has a name, and it’s called continued revenue reduction, or lower taxes. It’s unfortunate that the voice from the Progressive movement in the country seems to be primarily focused on the lack of “fairness” in the fact that the tax cuts are being extended to the uber-wealthy along with the other 98% of us. I say unfortunate, because what this does is provide the right-wing media with exactly the soundbite they need to continue to paint Progressives as the movement that wants to tax people.

Politics & Society

Obama: A Tale of Betrayal

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by Harold Jacobs
There recently has been a wave of commentary in the established media depicting President Obama as being concerned more with appearance than specific substantive accomplishments, craving acceptance by the economic and political establishment, and unwilling to fight for what he professes to believe in. Some commentators point to Obama’s personality as the problem: he is viewed as far more peculiar and strange than envisioned by those who voted for him. But whatever Obama’s quirks or insecurities, they do not appear to be more acute than those of previous presidents, such as Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, who nevertheless, for better or worse, governed with vigorous determination. Supporters of Obama claim that given the political forces at play (the blanket opposition of the Republicans, the splits inside the Democratic Party, the power of outside vested interests, etc.), he has done the best he could, that is, he has acted in good faith in attempting to implement his campaign agenda. After the Democratic Party’s overwhelming defeat in the recent Congressional elections, Obama is said by his supporters to be in “learning” mode.

art

What can we learn from the world’s oldest art?

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For Alex Shaland’s accompanying photographs of South African rock paintings by the indigenous San people on our art gallery – click here. Secrets Hidden in the Rocks: The Spirituality of the South African Pre-Historic Paintings
by Irene Shaland

Rocks as canvas: the world’s largest open art gallery
A few hours of scenic driving from bustling Cape Town (and seventeen endless hours of flight from the US) will transport you into an other-worldly realm: the South African Cederberg Mountains, a massive rock wilderness where wind and rain have sculpted giant sandstone boulders, piled one upon the other, into bizarre shapes and towering surreal creations in every shade of rust red, brown, yellow, orange and white. The Cederberg is the canvas for some of the oldest and most spiritual art ever created, and the mountains – home to the highest number of painted images per square kilometer – are one of the richest areas of rock art in South Africa – indeed the world. And, unlike France or Spain, where the well-known Stone Age paintings of the Lascaux and Altamira caves are located, in South Africa deep caverns are rare, so most paintings are in small shelters or rock overhangs. This means that most South African paintings are easily viewed, but they have also been exposed to merciless sun and rain for many centuries.

Politics & Society

George Voinovich – The Loss of a True Conservative Will Hurt Progressives

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By Neil Hanson

Largely unnoticed in our world of polarized politics today is Senator George Voinovich, Republican from Ohio. One of the last true conservative voices in Washington, he’s retiring early next year. This is significant today, as many of us hold our nose in disgust at the compromise reached by Obama and Republicans that will extend the so-called “Bush tax cuts”. Voinovich voted against the tax cuts in the first place. He has stated that he will vote against any extension of the tax cuts.

General News

A Better Way than… Fear and Loathing at the TSA

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By Neil Hanson
I got some really excellent comments and feedback on the first article I did here on the stepped-up searches that airline passengers are now going through. To summarize, my premise is that we give up our dignity and right to privacy by submitting to these searches. The natural reaction a person might have to this is: OK, what would you do instead? Well, what’s the real problem we’re trying to solve here? Terrorism is a symptom of something.