art

The Art of Revolution: Spoken Word, Video, and Performance Art to Change the World

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Some of today’s most interesting, socially engaged, controversial, and occasionally even blasphemous artists are working in the mediums of spoken word, video and performance art. I’m excited to be joining Tikkun Daily as a blogger on the multi-media arts beat. All of the artists I plan to present here are working out of the belief that through their work they have the capacity — even the obligation — to ask the questions that light the spark of change. Whether they are examining issues of social justice, feminism/gender politics, the environment versus consumerism, Israel/Palestine or any other of today’s most complex problems, these artists are trailblazing their way to the cutting edge of both politics and artistic representation. The first artist featured here is Lisa Vinebaum of Montréal, Québec.

Judaism

The Four Citizens: A Passover Meditation

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by Dan Brook
In the Passover Haggadah, we retell the story of our ancient enslavement in Egypt as well as our escape from that slavery. One of the central parts of this story is the parable of the four children, who each ask their own question with each receiving their own answer. Like the four children, there are also four citizens. We must approach each person differently, so that each can be reached where they are, while inspiring them to do more, to do the sacred work of a citizen, the job of making one’s life and one’s society better, more civil, and more just. All of these citizens can teach us something, and each of them, both actually and potentially, is inside each of us.

Inter-Culturalism

Wondering Why We Wander: Jews and Global Community Service

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By Carla Sameth
At age 23, my mom was allowed to leave home in the Bronx to go help her sister, my aunt Charlotte, with her new baby in Seattle. But the Jewish guys in Seattle met all the new girls “fresh off the boat” and she was quickly snatched up by my dad. When my mom decided to marry him soon afterwards and stay in Seattle, her father, my Grandpa Sam, put a curse on her saying her children would “scatter across the globe.” This was strangely prophetic because my siblings and I somehow ended up living in countries as diverse as Israel, France, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Japan. Like so many other Jewish youth, we also sought out international travel and community service trips as young adults.

Judaism

Pass Over: the Narrow Place—a midrash of sorts

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by S.L. Wisenberg
(This piece was officially first published in The Nervous Breakdown)

And Moses was jealous of his brother Aaron because of his fluidity in speaking because Moses lisped. And Aaron was jealous of Moses for his position, his magic, his blindly devoted followers; and Moses coveted Aaron’s Authentic Jewish (Slave) Experience and envied their older sister Miriam’s lightness and music, and Miriam was jealous that Aaron was their brother’s right-hand man. For many years she did not resent Moses because she had been his nurse-maid. Because of the decree that all baby boys of the Israelites had to be killed, Miriam had woven a basket from bullrushes she collected and partially dried. She had lain her baby brother down carefully in it and given him wine to sedate him.

Culture

Listening to Palestinian Voices: The Fight for Education Tour

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This spring Jewish Voice for Peace (I am a founding member of the Seattle Chapter) is sponsoring a tour of young Palestinian activists to speak in over fifteen cities in the US to discuss the challenges facing Palestinian students who live under Israeli military occupation. I was fortunate to hear Mira Dabit and Hanna Qassis speak in Seattle, and I also got a chance to interview them about right to education issues in Palestine, their lives under occupation, and their hopes for a better future. Mira Dabit, 25, was born in Jerusalem to a refugee family originally from the 1948 city of Al Lod. She has been a youth activist and folkloric storyteller for many years. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from Birzeit University.

Christianity

Why the Defrocking of Fr. Roy Bourgeois Will Test the Spirituality and Sincerity of SOAW Protest

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If you are following the news, you might know that sometime this week, Fr. Roy Bourgeois is going to be expelled from the Maryknoll order after more than 40 years as one of its leading members. Later, the Vatican is undoubtedly going to defrock – the word is “laicize” — him as a Catholic priest. This rupture comes two years after Fr. Roy participated in an unapproved ordination of a Catholic woman as a priest.

Christianity

The Fast for a Moral Budget Goes Viral

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From the listserve at a Unitarian Universalist congregation today, a classic Tikkunish rumination, a discovery by a humanist that religious progressives (in this case our good friends at Sojourners) can be inspiring allies:
I find myself connecting to an evangelical Christian organization, Sojourners, even though I’m a died-in-the-wool humanist… because of their message and action around social justice. I subscribe to their magazine as well as their e-newsletter, SojoMail. This group has turned me around from feeling uncomfortable about their theological positions to very appreciative of their social justice positions. Right now they are in the midst of a fast so that they can focus in on what’s really important with our national “budget debate” and that we can turn towards a moral budget.

Culture

The Mathematics of Love and Forgiveness

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OK, so the actual article in the New Scientist is headlined “The mathematics of being nice” but I’m suspicious enough of what is, nonetheless, my favorite science mag to see that word “nice” as a slightly snide diminution of what the article actually says (as in a pandering to anti-religious sentiment, but, hey, they ran the article!). Here’s a quote from the interview with Martin Nowak, professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University:
So how do you see religion? I see the teachings of world religions as an analysis of human life and an attempt to help. They intend to promote unselfish behaviour, love and forgiveness. When you look at mathematical models for the evolution of cooperation you also find that winning strategies must be generous, hopeful and forgiving.

Education

April 4th and 5th: Catch the Wisconsin Fire

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The fires of democracy continue to burn brightly in Wisconsin. Recall campaigns are racing along, and a recent community meeting in Milwaukee, usually a sleepy, ill-attended affair, boasted several hundred attendants. When their representative, Chris Larson, one of the “Wisconsin 14” showed up, they jumped to their feet in a standing ovation. Neighborhood listservs are boiling with activity. On Facebook and in a thousand union and church meetings, people solidify their connections with each other and their commitment to recover and strengthen our precious democracy.

art

Where Art Meets Religion: A Mystical Space

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by Peter Gimpel

Are there “sacred values” capable of dissolving the borders between art and religion? That question pulsed at the heart of the recent Art and Religion Symposium organized by the Foundation for Centripetal Art and co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion and the Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA. Rafael Chodos, the foundation’s director, opened the symposium with a riddle:
A group of people gather in a certain place, where they all focus on the same thing. Some of them are moved. All of them feel that their experience is important.