Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on
Join Chief Perry of the Ramapough Lenape in Honoring Ms. Wilansky: Register Now
On Sunday evening, May 21, The Shalom Center will honor Sophia Wilansky, an extraordinarily heroic young activist who was acting on the best of Jewish tradition and values as a Water Protector at Standing Rock when she was cruelly wounded by the militarized police.
We ask you to join in honoring her that evening.
NOW is when to make your contribution and reserve your seat or place your tribute for Sunday evening, May 21. Click here to make sure you have a place:
<https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/event/register?id=17&reset=1>
On May 7 the contribution cost for the celebration goes up, so NOW is the time to reserve your seat or place your Tribute, or both.
That same evening, we will honor Bill McKibben, world-renowned leader of the climate-activist movement, and Bishop Dwayne Royster, eloquent speaker and adept leader of POWER in Philadelphia and PICO nationally.
They will share their courage and their wisdom at Congregation Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia, in support of The Shalom Center’s work for eco-social justice, peace, and healing of our wounded Mother Earth.
For a deeper sense of what Sophia Wilansky faced and faces, I suggest you take a moment to watch her father be interviewed shortly after the police attack at Standing Rock. Click here:
And for a sense of Ms. Wilansky’s own values, even while she was under enormous stress and pain -- still in the Minnesota hospital after the attack on her -- she wrote: “If anyone else is hurt on the frontlines and needs to pay up front and out-of-pocket for time-sensitive emergency medical care, I would be happy to either lend or give the money out of my medical fund. I think that I received a disproportionate amount of money because I’m white, so I want to make sure that all the Sioux and other native people are taken care of as well.”
Ms. Wilansky will be introduced by Chief Dwaine Perry of the Ramapough Lenape, recently featured by the NY Times for his Nation’s resistance to yet another water-poisoning pipeline. Here they are together, after she was honored by the Ramapough.
Why is The Shalom Center honoring Ms. Wilansky?
Since our founding in 1983, we have thought, taught, and acted on a Prophetic sense of Jewish life: The deepest root of eco-social justice is the spiritual sense of passionate compassion of human beings toward each other, and in the relationships of adam and adamah, human “earthlings” and the Earth.
For me personally, that has meant that alongside the 24 books of religious and ethical thought that I have written are 23 arrests in nonviolent action to heal our country and our world from racism, religious bigotry, aggressive and self-destructive wars, and the wounds we have violently inflicted on our Mother Earth.
So for us it has been a blessing to watch and support the Native Lakota Nation and its allies who gathered at Standing Rock, and the Ramapough Lenape, and other First Nations who are struggling against the Corporate Carbon Pharaohs of our day. Their bravery has reawakened that deep spiritual sense of Earth-connection among other Americans.
Ms. Wilansky represents in her own mind, soul, and body that blessing , that reawakening, that reconnection with our own ancient earth-based spirituality of shepherds and farmers in the Hebrew Bible.
We need your help to carry forward that spiritually rooted activism in the Age of Trumpery.
So we ask your presence to honor her, and Bill McKibben, and Bishop Royster -- and to make it possible to carry the Prophetic vision forward.·
· NOW is the time to reserve your seat or place your tribute for this amazing conversation and celebration: Click to <https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/event/register?id=17&reset=1>
· Remember! -- On May 7 the contribution cost for the celebration goes up, so NOW is the time to register.
I repeat: We need your help. I do not use the word lightly.
