Rabbi Arthur Waskow 02/15/2003

Dear friends,

On February 15 we made history, no matter what happens next. For that was Day One of "Globalization from the grass roots up" — a planetary peace demonstration, the first in world history. What makes the Bhopal chemical disaster and the H-Bomb and the Exxon oil spill and global scorching possible also makes possible a planetary community.

Which we choose is up to us.

Below are the words of Ruth Messinger, in the antiwar rally and a pre-rally multireligious prayer service with Archbishop Tutu in New York City yesterday.

Thank God a gutsy, menshlich, Jewishly committed Jew was there on this amazing day to speak with a passion for truth, with a vision rooted in Jewish teachings, and with a Jewish prayer.

Ruth is president of American Jewish World Service, former Borough President of Manhattan, and former Democratic Party candidate for mayor of New York.

She was joined by tens of thousands of Jews — we saw them, many of them saw us and cheered our Aserot Dibrot/ Ten Commandments banner — on the streets of New York yesterday.

May the day soon come when the official "leaders" of those Jews run to catch up with them.

After Ruth's words, I'll share my own sense of the New York event, and also the conference in Rome, of Italian Catholic social activists, at which I spoke the day before.

Blessings of shalom, Arthur

RUTH MESSINGER'S WORDS

At the prayer service:

LET US PRAY.

MAY WE HAVE THE STRENGTH TO STAND STRONG AGAINST THIS CULTURE OF VIOLENCE, AGAINST THE FIERCE DRIVE TO WAR AND THE SPREAD OF FEAR THAT ARE SAPPING THE STRENGTH OF OUR PEOPLE.

MAY WE WORK IN THE WORLD TO INVEST THE DOLLARS BEING USED TO MAKE WAR TO IMPROVE THE LIVES OF OUR OWN CITIZENS, TO FEED THE 30,000 CHILDREN IN THE WORLD WHO DIE FROM HUNGER EVERY DAY.

LET US NEVER RETREAT TO THE CONVENIENCE OF BEING OVERWHELMED. WE ARE POWERFUL. WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

MAY WE STRIVE TO MATCH THE ACTIONS OF OUR NATION WITH THE PASSION AND SPIRIT OF HER PEOPLE, WITH THE COMMITMENT TO COMPASSION AND JUSTICE, AND THE YEARNING FOR PEACE THAT ARE SO VISIBLE TODAY ON THE STREETS OF THE WORLD.

YIHI RATZON MILPANEHA ADONAI ELOHEINU VELOHEI AVOTEINU V'IMOTEINU SHTULIHEINU L'SHALOM, V TATZIDEINU L'SHALOM, V TADRIHEINU L' SHALOM.

MAY IT BE YOUR WILL, OUR GOD AND GOD OF OUR ANCESTORS, TO LEAD US TO PEACE, TO DIRECT OUR STEPS TO PEACE, TO GUIDE US TO PEACE.

AMEN

And at the rally;

RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL: "IN A FREE SOCIETY, WHERE TERRIBLE WRONGS EXIST, SOME ARE GUILTY, ALL ARE RESPONSIBLE."

AS PEOPLE OF CONSCIENCE WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT OUR GOVERNMENT DOES.

WE ARE HERE EXERCISING THAT RESPONSIBILITY. WE WILL CONTINUE TO BE HEARD, TO STAND STRONG, TO SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, TO SAY NO TO A UNILATERAL PRE-EMPTIVE WAR.

BECAUSE SILENCE IN THE FACE OF THIS THREAT IS UNACCEPTABLE.

BECAUSE SILENCE IN THIS INSTANCE IS BETRAYAL.

BECAUSE THERE ARE SERIOUS INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS UNDERWAY TO STOP IRAQ AND HUSSEIN WITHOUT GOING TO WAR.

BECAUSE THERE IS NO PLAN FOR THIS WAR, NO COMMITMENT TO REBUILDING IRAQ.

BECAUSE IN A WAR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LIVES WILL BE LOST. MOTHERS, FATHERS, SONS, DAUGHTERS. LIVES OF AMERICANS. LIVES OF IRAQIS. OTHER LIVES. PRECIOUS LIVES.

BECAUSE A WAR WILL COST US $200 BILLION, MORE THAN WE NOW SPEND ON HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, JOB TRAINING, HOUSING AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION FOR OUR OWN CITIZENS-A SURE PRESCRIPTION, AS DR. KING WARNED, FOR SPIRITUAL DEATH.

THE MONEY WE WILL SPEND ON THIS WAR COULD PROVIDE HEALTH INSURANCE TO EVERY KID IN THE UNITED STATES, DOUBLE THE FUNDING FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY, FEED THE 30 THOUSAND CHILDREN AROUND THE WORLD WHO DIE FROM HUNGER EVERY DAY, INVEST TO MAKE A SERIOUS IMPACT ON THE GLOBAL AIDS CRISIS.

WE STAND UNITED, TO SPEAK OUT, TO DO ALL WE CAN TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

LET US NEVER RETREAT TO THE CONVENIENCE OF BEING OVERWHELMED. WE ARE POWERFUL. WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

NEVER DOUBT THAT A SMALL GROUP OF CITIZENS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT EVER HAS.

From Arthur:

Last week I was invited to speak at a national conference of Italian Catholic social activists-- more than a thousand people filling a church in Rome — about Iraq, America, and peace. Once I had worked out a way to get back to New York in time for the great antiwar rally, I decided to go. (I could have stayed to demonstrate in Rome, where between one million and three million people gathered yesterday, but I deeply wanted to be in America, with Americans and with Jews, to confront the government that speaks in the name of America.)

In Rome I drew on the Biblical and Rabbinic teachings of what it means to seek "justice, justice," and to "seek peace & pursue it." I said what I thought the world's religious communities, including the Catholic church, might do in this crisis. And just before Shabbat, I was interviewed for a three-minute tape (with translation) that, they told me, would be played on a giant screen for the great gathering next day. Whether it actually was or not, I do not know.

Then I flew back, arriving just a hair too late to reach the 350-person Jewish contingent — organized by The Shalom Center and JFREJ (Jews for Racial & Economic Justice) — where it had gathered at the Workmen's Circle/ Arbeter Ring building in New York. (Ruth Messinger, in the midst of the turmoil of her own busy morning, took the time to come there. I was told that somebody expressed surprise and she said, "I heard this was where the Jews were meeting — so of course I came!)

Special thanks — NOT "by the way" — to Lee Moore of The Shalom Center staff and Melanie Kaye-Kantrowitz of JFREJ and Marty Schwartz of Arbeter Ring for their organizing work.

But I found the contingent anyway, at 33d and Third Avenue. For hours, literally, in the midst of a sea of people whom the police most of the time forced to stay on sidewalks, we walked north, kept again and again from moving onto First Avenue but finally getting there, way up on 66th street.

There were Americans of every imaginable ethnos, and every imaginable clothing (from veterans in uniform to lawyers in suits to housewives in cloth coats to unionists in work clothes to punk-rockers in green hair to children in pink snowsuits, and a few in diapers) and every imaginable range of signs —

There was an Israeli flag, carried by a Rutgers student who is a member of the Progressive Zionist "Hashomer Hatzair." There were signs in Hebrew, "Ha'Olam Omer Lo L'Milchamah," "The world says No to war" — the over-all slogan of the March — alongside other signs with the same slogan in Spanish, and still others in Arabic. Under that famous, gorgeous blue and white photo of the earth from space.

It was a wonder-full, hope-filled day. No matter what the Bush Administration does, my hope and joy in the human race got a big lift yesterday — truly a Shabbat of Shalom (and some other time I'll share with you a story about that too).

Just one last thing: In San Francisco today, three rabbis who are both deeply committed to Israel and critical of the Sharon government — if anything, slightly less intensely critical than Rabbi Michael Lerner — are speaking at the invitation of the antiwar movement.

They were invited before the explosion over whether Lerner should speak, so they were not a "make-up" token. (One of them heads the rabbinic association devoted to Jewish renewal; one leads a social-activist congregation in Oakland; the third is rabbi of a major Reform congregation in San Francisco.)

So — although I think it was a mistake for the coalition/s there not to invite Lerner — I do not think it was a simple matter of his being blackballed because he is committed to Israel. I think it was much more complicated than that. And I am very sad that his not being invited became much more noticed in the Jewish world than the fact that Ruth Messinger was invited.

L' Shalom, Arthur

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director
The Shalom Center (www.theshalomcenter.org)

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