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Tikkun to heal, repair and transform the world
A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner Join or Donate Now!
Dear Absurd Times:
There's a really good chance you know someone who knows someone who would be spiritually uplifted and perhaps even transformed by attending our social-justice oriented High Holidays this year (you don't have to be Jewish to get a tremendous amount out of this). In the past people have come from as far away as Australia, Israel, Japan, England, Germany and South Africa. Would you please send this below to all your friends and email lists, post this on your Facebook page and send it also to any email lists you are part of? post it on your website? And tell people on twitter or on any other social media to which you have access? They can read this info at :
http://www.beyttikkun.org/article.php/HHDMain -- Thanks so much.
Rabbi Michael Lerner RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com
Beyt Tikkun High Holy Days
First day Rosh Hashanah Monday Sept 17 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m.followed by a vegetarian pot-luck (bring a main course dish to share) and then at 4 p.m. a demonstration in the spirit of Rosh Hashanah challenging the arrogance of the large banks--at the Wells Fargo bank opposite the downtown BART station at Shattuck Ave. and Center Street
Second day Rosh Hashanah Tuesday Sept 18 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. followed by Tashlich at a nearby stream of water
Kol Nidrey Eve Sept. 25 6:45-10:30 p.m.
Yom Kippur All day Sept 26 (with break between 3:30-5:30 p.m.)
Occupy Rosh Hashanah: 4 p.m. Sept 17 outside the Wells Fargo Bank at Shattuck and Center Street Berkeley, Ca.All services held at Pacific School of Religion 1798 Scenic Ave, Berkeley except 2nd day Rosh Hashanah at 951 Cragmont Ave, Berkeley and Mincha/Ne'ilah on Yom Kippur at 5:30-8 p.m. at the Bade Museum of the Pacific School of ReligionChild care available on 1st day of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur if you call us in advance to reserve a place for your children. Children's services on 1st day of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at 11 a.m.Come and join the Beyt Tikkun Community for a spiritually deep High Holy Days experience.Services will be under the leadership of Rabbi Michael Lerner. This year he will be joined on Rosh HaShanah by Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman in co-leading the services. All three will be involved in teaching and leading services on the first night and on both the first and second days of Rosh HaShanah. On Kol Nidre we will have Beyt Tikkun member Rae Abileah sharing a teaching, and on Tom Kippur day, Josh Healey. The services are likely to be joyous, intellectually stimulating, psychologically sophisticated, with music, dancing, and rejoicing at the New Year and the possibility of self-and-societal transformation (tikkun) plus an amazing highpoint of Jewish social justice, peace, and environmental consciousness, and a spiritually rich experience. In the spirit of Rosh Hashanah prayers that call for the overthrow of "the kingdom of the arrogant," we will join with the Shalom Center and Kehillah to protest the arrogance of the major banks in the way they've treated their approach to mortgage loans by a brief demonstration outside Wells Fargo at 4 p.m. on the first day of Rosh Hashanah at the corner of Center St. and Shattuck Ave.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is a founder and editor of Tikkun Magazine, chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley and author of eleven books, including: Jewish Renewal, The Politics of Meaning, Jews and Blacks (with Cornel West), The Left Hand of God: Taking back our Country from the Religous Right, and Embracing Israel/Palestine: A Strategy for Middle East Peace.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow is the author of Seasons of Our Joy(a new version of which will be published this summer by the Jewish Publication Society), Godwrestling, and many other books of Jewish spiritual wisdom, as well as the founder of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia and a tireless activist for environmental sanity and social justice.
Rabbi Phyllis Berman founded (in 1979) and continues to direct the Riverside Language Program for adult immigrants in NYC; she directed the summer program at Elat Chayyim for 12 years; she co-authored, most recently, Freedom Journeys with her husband, Arthur Waskow.
Rae Abileah is the co-director of CODEPINK Women for Peace and is a co-organizer of Occupy AIPAC, Stolen Beauty boycott of Ahava cosmetics and Women Occupy. Rae is a contributing author to 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military; Sisters Singing; Incantations, Blessings, Chants, Prayers, Art and Sacred Stories by Women Beyond Tribal Loyalties; Stories of Jewish Peace Activists.
Josh Healey, a community organizxer, poet and former director of Youth Speaks in San Francisco received the Mario Savio Young Activist Award in October 2011, delivering his acceptance speech and poem in front of 10,000 people at Occupy Casl. His blogs are available through Tikkun Daily at www.tikkun.org.
Music for these services will be provided by Achi Ben Shalom and his Beyt Tikkun band. He is the founder of Adamah band, is an experienced Jewish educator and song leader, and has been working with Beyt Tikkun synagogue-without-walls for 15 years.
Our services are like our shul, traditional in most of the format and melodies, with lots of Hebrew prayer, singing, and dancing, with many innovative English translations and commentaries, with time for inner work so that the whole thing doesn't feel like a performance or a stage show. Our emphasis is on being spiritually alive and experiencing the transformative power of these special days.
Our High Holy services are also a celebration of life--with music, dancing, and potlucks for delicious food and schmoozing. We invite you to come and bring your family and your friends. Many people who are not Jewish come to our services and are made to feel welcomed there.
Children: Children under 16 are admitted at no cost. Free childcare will be available during the day-time services. There will be special services for children on the first day of Rosh HaShanah and on Yom Kippur.
Location of Services: All services except the 2nd day of Rosh HaShanah will be in Berkeley at the Pacific School of Religion. The 2nd day of Rosh HaShanah will be at the Rabbi's house in Berkeley. Click here for directions and more information.
Prices: Ticket prices are on a sliding scale based on income. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. To view the price schedule and information on how to apply for a discount click here.
How to Register
- On-Line:
- Members receive free tickets to all services. Membership for one year is 1% of your annual income but not less than $300 for a single person household or $400 for a two or more person household. A special $75 membership is also available to adults under age 30. To join or renew your Beyt Tikkun Membership on-line, click here.
- Non-Members: If you want to purchase tickets via our secure server without joining right now,here click or www.beyttikkun.org/
staticpages/index.php/hhd_2012 .
- By Phone: If you have any questions or you wish to register by telephone, please call us at (510) 528-6250and leave a message with your name and phone number and good times to call you. We will call you back and complete your reservation by phone.
Links to High Holy Day Pages: Main High Holy Day Page ll On-Line Registration ll l l Directions
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Returning a Favor
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Why America and Israel Are the Greatest Threats to Peace
Home 
Why America and Israel Are the Greatest Threats to Peace
By Noam Chomsky
Imagine if Iran -- or any other country -- did a fraction of what American and Israel do at will.
September 04, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - - It is not easy to escape from one's skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let's take a few examples.
The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Imagine the situation to be reversed.
Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power participation. Its leaders announce that negotiations are going nowhere. Israel refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and allow inspections, as Iran has done. Israel continues to defy the overwhelming international call for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region. Throughout, Iran enjoys the support of its superpower patron.
Iranian leaders are therefore announcing their intention to bomb Israel, and prominent Iranian military analysts report that the attack may happen before the U.S. elections.
Iran can use its powerful air force and new submarines sent by Germany, armed with nuclear missiles and stationed off the coast of Israel. Whatever the timetable, Iran is counting on its superpower backer to join if not lead the assault. U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta says that while we do not favor such an attack, as a sovereign country Iran will act in its best interests.
All unimaginable, of course, though it is actually happening, with the cast of characters reversed. True, analogies are never exact, and this one is unfair - to Iran.
Like its patron, Israel resorts to violence at will. It persists in illegal settlement in occupied territory, some annexed, all in brazen defiance of international law and the U.N. Security Council. It has repeatedly carried out brutal attacks against Lebanon and the imprisoned people of Gaza, killing tens of thousands without credible pretext.
Thirty years ago Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, an act that has recently been praised, avoiding the strong evidence, even from U.S. intelligence, that the bombing did not end Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program but rather initiated it. Bombing of Iran might have the same effect.
Iran too has carried out aggression - but during the past several hundred years, only under the U.S.-backed regime of the shah, when it conquered Arab islands in the Persian Gulf.
Iran engaged in nuclear development programs under the shah, with the strong support of official Washington. The Iranian government is brutal and repressive, as are Washington's allies in the region. The most important ally, Saudi Arabia, is the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime, and spends enormous funds spreading its radical Wahhabist doctrines elsewhere. The gulf dictatorships, also favored U.S. allies, have harshly repressed any popular effort to join the Arab Spring.
The Nonaligned Movement - the governments of most of the world's population - is now meeting in Teheran. The group has vigorously endorsed Iran's right to enrich uranium, and some members - India, for example - adhere to the harsh U.S. sanctions program only partially and reluctantly.
The NAM delegates doubtless recognize the threat that dominates discussion in the West, lucidly articulated by Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command: "It is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East," one nation should arm itself with nuclear weapons, which "inspires other nations to do so."
Butler is not referring to Iran, but to Israel, which is regarded in the Arab countries and in Europe as posing the greatest threat to peace In the Arab world, the United States is ranked second as a threat, while Iran, though disliked, is far less feared. Indeed in many polls majorities hold that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons to balance the threats they perceive.
If Iran is indeed moving toward nuclear-weapons capability - this is still unknown to U.S. intelligence - that may be because it is "inspired to do so" by the U.S.-Israeli threats, regularly issued in explicit violation of the U.N. Charter.
Why then is Iran the greatest threat to world peace, as seen in official Western discourse? The primary reason is acknowledged by U.S. military and intelligence and their Israeli counterparts: Iran might deter the resort to force by the United States and Israel.
Furthermore Iran must be punished for its "successful defiance," which was Washington's charge against Cuba half a century ago, and still the driving force for the U.S. assault against Cuba that continues despite international condemnation.
Other events featured on the front pages might also benefit from a different perspective. Suppose that Julian Assange had leaked Russian documents revealing important information that Moscow wanted to conceal from the public, and that circumstances were otherwise identical.
Sweden would not hesitate to pursue its sole announced concern, accepting the offer to interrogate Assange in London. It would declare that if Assange returned to Sweden (as he has agreed to do), he would not be extradited to Russia, where chances of a fair trial would be slight.
Sweden would be honored for this principled stand. Assange would be praised for performing a public service - which, of course, would not obviate the need to take the accusations against him as seriously as in all such cases.
The most prominent news story of the day here is the U.S. election. An appropriate perspective was provided by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who held that "We may have democracy in this country, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both."
Guided by that insight, coverage of the election should focus on the impact of wealth on policy, extensively analyzed in the recent study "Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America" by Martin Gilens. He found that the vast majority are "powerless to shape government policy" when their preferences diverge from the affluent, who pretty much get what they want when it matters to them.
Small wonder, then, that in a recent ranking of the 31 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of social justice, the United States placed 27th, despite its extraordinary advantages.
Or that rational treatment of issues tends to evaporate in the electoral campaign, in ways sometimes verging on comedy.
To take one case, Paul Krugman reports that the much-admired Big Thinker of the Republican Party, Paul Ryan, declares that he derives his ideas about the financial system from a character in a fantasy novel - "Atlas Shrugged" - who calls for the use of gold coins instead of paper currency.
It only remains to draw from a really distinguished writer, Jonathan Swift. In "Gulliver's Travels," his sages of Lagado carry all their goods with them in packs on their backs, and thus could use them for barter without the encumbrance of gold. Then the economy and democracy could truly flourish - and best of all, inequality would sharply decline, a gift to the spirit of Justice Brandeis.This article was originally posted at Alternet
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Good article
Print Filming Of Jerusalem Documentary Halted Over Criticism That It 'Normalizes The Occupation'
September 04, 2012
By Amira Hass
Source: Haaretz.com
Amira Hass's ZSpace Page
Palestinian advocates of a cultural boycott of Israel have been demanding that a documentary about Jerusalem be called off, saying that the participation of Israeli co-producers in the film constitutes "normalization of the occupation."
Twenty Palestinian directors -including citizens of Israel- have cancelled their participation in the German-led film, "24 hours in Jerusalem," due to pressure from various Palestinian organizations and social media networks. The filming, which was slated to take place on September 6, has meanwhile been halted.
Opponents claim that the film, which includes dozens of Palestinians and Israelis from Jerusalem, treats Israel as a "normal" state by whitewashing its role as an occupying entity.
"24 hours in Jerusalem" is based on the movie "24 hours in Berlin," which was filmed over the course of a single day in September 2008. Eighty Berliners were filmed in one day, and their stories edited to fit a 24-hour long movie that was screened one year later on Arte, a Franco-German television network, and other prominent European television channels.
The movie's success prompted the German production company ZERO 1 to search for another city whose residents' stories would arouse international interest, which led them to Jerusalem. According to the German production company, the goal is to "enable Palestinian participants in the movie to depict their pain, their hopes and their suffering and ambitions by revealing their daily lives in their city."
ZERO 1 has signed two separate contracts – one with Kuttab Productions, Ltd., the Palestinian East Jerusalem company headed by Bishara Kuttab (son of journalist Daoud Kuttab) - and one with Israeli producers Mosh Danon and Talia Kleinhendler.
The Palestinian company is responsible for selecting the Palestinian directors (from the West Bank and Israel) and selecting the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to take part in the film. It is also responsible for editing the footage.
Participants were chosen over the course of the last month and include activists from Silwan, the Shuafat refugee camp, a member of parliament from Hamas whom Israel expelled from Jerusalem, and a man whose house was divided by the separation barrier.
The Palestinian crews are funded entirely by foundations supporting German public TV channels, among them Arte, as well a Finnish TV station. Some of the funding for Israeli producers comes from the Jerusalem Development Authority's Jerusalem Film and Television Fund.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel published an open letter ten days ago on behalf of the "Organization of National Operations in Occupied Jerusalem," calling on Kuttab Productions to withdraw from the project. According to the letter, the joint German-Israeli-Palestinian project is partly funded by a foundation serving the "occupation municipality," a fact the directors were not originally aware of.
Critics have said that the project "whitewashes" the occupation and its violent acts of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, and thus directly contradicts the principles established by the founding meeting of the Israel boycott movement in 2007.
Similar, yet even harsher criticism was sounded across social media networks. Last week, several Palestinian journalists and directors in Ramallah published a public letter condemning the project and demanding that Palestinian participants withdraw.
In response, Daoud Kuttab published an article in the Palestine News Network complaining that critics published condemnations without being aware of all the facts. He also voiced regret that the Palestinian producers were not informed prior to the publication of the letter.
Kuttab said the project provides an opportunity for Palestinian Jerusalemites to expose their reality under occupation in a film broadcast by numerous prominent television networks. He added that a movie on Jerusalem cannot exclude Israeli participants.
"As is known, the official Palestinian position is that the capital of a future Palestinian state will be in East Jerusalem – in other words there is no attempt to erase the other side," Kuttab specified. He blamed the project's critics for acting like bullies and for launching "intellectual terrorism," writing that they prompted hysterical threats on all those who are related to the movie.
In the article, Kuttab noted that he met with Palestinian Authority and PLO officials, representatives of the union of journalists, Jerusalem fieldworkers and others, who all said they found the project to be excellent. However, when one of the directors called the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, he was informed that the Ministry opposes the film.
"Is it appropriate that one group would pressure citizens and force their agenda on the entire public?" Kuttab asked. According to Kuttab, those who stand to lose are the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, who will miss the opportunity to share their reality with a wide European audience.
Representatives of the German production company are due to visit Jerusalem next week to try and thwart the project's cancellation.
| From: | Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives |
|---|---|
| URL: | http://www.zcommunications.org/filming-of-jerusalem-documentary-halted-over-criticism-that-it-normalizes-the-occupation-by-amira-hass |
