Healing Israel/Palestine

Thousands Chant in Tel Aviv "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies" as Israel and Gaza Are Shelled

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On Saturday evening, with rockets falling upon southern Israel and bombs falling on Gaza – with the innocent dying on both sides – approximately 10,000 social justice protesters convened in Tel Aviv for a silent march. The gathering, which intended to both recognize the violence occurring and to remind government officials that social justice reforms cannot be jettisoned with the security situation intensifying, was mostly silent at first, with thousands carrying signs and torches while marching to the sea. However, not long into the march, an Arab-Jewish group (Hadash) began chanting, “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.” The chant was picked up by a large contingent, but it was also met with heated rhetoric, particularly from a group Ami Kaufman in 972 Magazine described as “right-wing racists.” The situation was tense, particularly in the shadow of the tragedy that occurred that afternoon, in which a rocket fired from Gaza hit a home in Beer Sheva, killing one Israeli citizen and injuring many more.

Environment

Pirket Avot and the Tar Sands Pipeline (Why I'll Be Risking Arrest at the White House)

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On Thursday I announced my intention to join the civil disobedience against the Tar Sands XL Pipeline in a Listserve post to fellow congregants at Temple Rodef Shalom, the Reform Jewish congregation I belong to in northern Virginia. I wasn’t sure what people would make of it. There is a certain reticence in our community about overt political engagement on controversial issues.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Obama's Words No Longer Matter to Palestinians

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Three years after Obama’s Cairo speech, the Obama administration is now turning its back on the Palestinians, for as the Palestinian Authority prepares to approach the United Nations in September, hoping for recognition of an independent Palestinian state, it is the Obama administration which is pledging to stand in the Palestinians’ way.

Politics & Society

The Danger of Dismantling Israel's Protest Tent Cities

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On Wednesday in Holon – a city situated just south of Tel Aviv – municipality inspectors arrived at a protest tent encampment in the Jesse Cohen neighborhood. There, they informed protesters that a demolition order had been issued, and that residents had 24 hours to break down the camp and vacate the premises. The response? Enraged, many protesters refused the order, with some taking out their intense frustration by burning tires and furniture in the street and blocking traffic. Protesters burn tires in Holon.

General News

Who Talks About "Cultural Marxism" Anymore?

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Beyond a few academics, who talks about cultural Marxism anymore? I actually hadn’t heard the term used in contemporary politics, until right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik invoked it in his 1518 page manifesto against Islam and multiculturalism. So imagine my surprise, when I came across an attack on “cultural Marxism” on the Family Research Council website this morning! The article is titled “Activists’ Game Plan Against Religion, Life, and the Family: The UN, the Courts, and Transnationalist Ideology.” The article begins with an attack on the famous 19th century work by Frederick Engels, The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884), but focuses mostly on contemporary international law and the right-wing battle against feminism and gay marriage.

Christianity

The Strength and Limits of Radical Generosity—A Reflection on Brian McLaren's Progressive Christianity (Part II)

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This is the second half of a two-part series. Read the first part here. Brian McLaren’s description of the problems humanity now faces is more accurate than we usually get from preachers, politicians and the mass media. But has he adequately clarified the institutional resistance that must be overcome to alter or abolish the Societal Machine that he says has become a Suicidal Machine. His largely realistic description of this Machine has a curious blind spot, which needs correction if we are to develop an effective counter-approach.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Where Are the Geopolitical, Human Rights Issues in Israel's Protests?

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The massive tent protests currently sweeping Israel, originally triggered by the country’s young, urban middle class over unsustainable housing costs, have morphed into a movement representing a multitude of social justice issues. In fact, during rallies now, one of the most frequent chants is “האם דורש צדק חברתי” – “The People Demand Social Justice.” On Tuesday, protest leaders officially championed a vast array of social justice causes when they presented Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with an expansive list of demands – among them lower taxes, health care reforms and the broadening of free, public education. However, noticeably absent from the demands were any geopolitical, human rights issues related to the conflict with the Palestinians, namely settlements and the occupation. This absence has been noted by particular segments, namely Palestinians, left-leaning Israelis and progressive American Jews (the group to which I belong).

Politics & Society

Don't Fall for the GOP (and Obama) Lie about the Alleged Budget Crisis

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We at Tikkun have been saying for the past 3 years what former Sec. of Labor and economist Robert Reich says below and what Paul Krugman has been saying for the past 2 years: there is no serious budget crisis. Instead, we have an employment and housing crisis. It is true, as Robert Reich says below, that the Republicans have been running with this lie for the past several years in order to prevent the Democrats, when they had the majority in both houses of Congress, and the presidency, 2009-2010, from doing what the country needed: a massive Work Progress Administration (WPA) employment program coupled with a freeze on mortgage foreclosures and a law requiring the banks to renegotiate mortgage interests to what it was when the mortgage was first offered to the buyers. But Reich plays down the huge culpability of Obama and his economic advisors (who could have been Reich and Krugman, and no Republican forced Obama to go with the pro-corporate advisors he actually chose form the start).Obama accepted the framing of the problems that the right-wing had developed, and has for 3 years been mis-educating people about the nature of the problem we face.

Christianity

"This is What Religion Looks Like!"

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Anyone driving through Madison, Wisconsin in April and May would have recognized those nine beeps of car and truck horns, ubiquitous throughout the city: This is what democracy looks like! The mainstream media focused on unions, of course, public and private, coming together in unexpected solidarity, but not everyone realized that spiritual and religious groups played a significant role as well. And here’s something that will challenge your prejudices: evangelical groups were among them. Together with the religious organizations that form the usual progressive “suspects,” they chanted their own variation on a theme: This is what religion looks like. Houses of Worship: the new “public” spaces for political action?

Christianity

The Strength and Limits of Radical Generosity— A Reflection on Brian McLaren's Progressive Christianity (Part I)

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Spiritual progressives often say they are open to wisdom in other faith traditions. One way we can practice this openness is to appreciate what people operating from other perspectives say when they say it well and then present our differences in the framework of basic respect. Starting a conversation of this sort is a way of strengthening a shared spiritual journey. In April of this year, members of the Bowling Green community in Western Kentucky had a chance to hear Brian McLaren present his analysis of current global problems and his vision of how to confront them inspired by his interpretation of the message of Jesus. A more elaborate version of his view is found in Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville, TN, 2007).