CiviMail

We have the whole world in our hands!

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear  friends,

Please look again at our logo, at the very top of this page. It’s a graphic symbol for this truth,  this song, this covenant:

 We have the whole world in our hands!

We have the trees and the honeybees in our hands,

We have our children and their children in our hands,

We have the whole world in our hands!

And there is a reason for the tree just below:

A Tree of Life, for Those Who Hold Her Close

In Jewish tradition, the Torah is the Tree of Life. In the mystical wisdom of Kabbalah, the Tree of Life is the whole of God’s Creation, with its roots in Heaven and its fruit –- us. And modern science teaches that we breathe in what the trees breathe out, and the trees breathe in what we breathe out. YHWH is the Interbreath of Life.

 These spiritual symbols are intended to convey a practical truth, an emotional truth: Let trees die, let myriads of honeybees die, let dolphins and whales die, and we die with them. Heal the planet that grows from them and through them, and we can create a joyful Beloved Community. Struggling to heal our climate, our planet, is not just symbolism. Our lives, our joy, depend upon that struggle.

 As the end of 2018 approaches, I am writing both to share  with you what the next stages of The Shalom Center‘s work will be, and to urgently ask your help in getting that work done.

 On many of the official oppressions of our time  --  White House encouragement for white nationalism and anti-Semitism; ripping children from their families; subjugating women -- The Shalom Center, along with other Jewish organizations, has not only spoken up but even been arrested in protests. We see all these and many other cruelties as part of the same over-all policy.

 One of those cruelties is helping modern Carbon Pharaohs poison the Earth by burning fossil fuels. Why? – To boost their Hyperprofits. That one endangers the very future of the planet,  human civilization, and the lives of our grandchildren. It demands action as a high priority.

 Yet in regard to the climate crisis, The Shalom Center is still the only national Jewish organization that sees the climate crisis and healing the Earth as Priority Number 1.

 During the next year we have four major projects on our planning table:

1.  Creating a new multireligious, multiracial pre-Passover Interfaith Freedom Seder that brings new insight and new “incite” to renewing our freedom in our generation and ending the plagues that modern Corporate Carbon Pharaohs and their governmental toadies are bringing on our Earth. It will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Freedom Seder –- then an unprecedented transformation of the conventional Passover Seder -- which I wrote and helped to organize in 1969. Beyond celebration of the past, we will transform the future.


Reverends William Barber and Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign; Ana Maria Archila, who is the director of the Center for Popular Democracy and was one of the women who famously confronted Senator Flake in the US Capitol elevator; and Debbie Almontaser,  founder of the Khalil Gibran School in New York City, survivor and “transcender” of some bitter Islamophobic attacks, and founder /  director of Bridging Cultures. have agreed to join in leading the new Freedom Seder, next April 7. We intend to live-stream parts of it to faraway communities that hold their own Freedom Seders that evening. Save the date! More information later. 

[This globe will be the central symbol of the Interfaith Freedom Seder + 50. It is reframed as matzah, the unleavened bread of fierce urgency for freedom. It symbolizes our commitment to global liberation. It was designed by Avi Katz fpr The Shalom Center.]

2. Holding a series of Webinars on “Sacred Seasons of the Sacred Earth” to stimulate the celebration of Jewish festivals (which are all rooted in the rhythms of moon, sun, and earth) in ways that protect and heal the Earth that gave birth to the festivals themselves.  We have already held one Webinar on Sukkot and one on Hanukkah. Upcoming: Tu B’Shvat and Passover. Others will be scheduled throughout the year. You can register online at https://tinyurl.com/ss4seinfo

3. Persuading congregations --   Jewish and other – to become seeds of creating neighborhood solar co-ops. Solar co-ops can save householders money by slashing their electricity bills; can reduce asthma from burning coal and oil; can make serious cuts in CO2 and methane emissions that are burning Earth; can build local community resilience as local unnatural disasters multiply; and – above all – can become centers of political challenge and change to move us beyond the Carbon Pharaohs and to restore a  healthy, life-giving planet. A planet as life-giving for our grandchildren as it was for our grandparents.

4. Planning a multireligious Training Institute for organizers to learn how to draw powerfully on their own religious traditions and speak powerfully to their own religious communities to heal our wounded Earth by vigorous action.

 

All this costs money. Is it worth it? We face what Dr. Martin Luther King called “the fierce urgency of Now.” Thousands of the world’s scientists through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and even the consensus of US civil servants across the whole Federal government – despite their President’s frantic denials – have reported the hot facts of far more expensive food, economic ruin, and major widespread medical problems that will result from global scorching. The California wildfires have already shown that hundreds of deaths and thousands of destroyed homes and businesses are fierce truth in the Now, of what will get far more frequent in the future.

 Yet the same scientists and experts say that we can heal the planet – if we act quickly. That is why The Shalom Center has made this our first priority. We hope that with your help, we can awaken the sleeping giants of the Jewish and other religious communities to become active energies for change. A change as necessary – and urgent – and achievable – as the US shift to a war footing in the early 1940s.

At The Shalom Center , we have responded by drawing on Torah teachings that have the power to move hearts and minds and inspire action as they speak of Earth in the voices of indigenous shepherds and farmers.

If you feel moved by what we are planning, please make as substantial a contribution as you can, by clicking on the maroon "Contribute" button in the left-hand margin.

 With a full heart, we say “Thank you!” The burning trees of California and the drowning towns of Florida thank you. The suffering refugees who are fleeing droughts and starvation caused by global scorching thank you. The food plants that cannot grow without bees to pollinate them thank you.

 May the seeds of healing that you have sown and keep on sowing,  flower and be fruitful for you yourselves and for our world in blessings of shalom, salaam, paz, peace! -- 

We have the whole world in our hands!

We have the seeds and the sowing in our hands,

We have our children and their children in our hands,

We have the whole world in our hands!

8 Nights of Hanukkah, my True Love sang to me: "Please heal My Earth!”

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Beforehand: Start Now. If you don’t have Seasons of Our Joy and/ or want the newly updated 4th edition, published by the Jewish Publication Society, plan NOW before Hanukkah to go on-line at https://jps.org/books/seasons-of-our-joy/ to order it,  or call Longleaf Services at 800-848-6224 or 919-966-7449, or Email customerservice@longleafservices.org

Prepare for Learning Early --  Right Now!: The next Jewish festival will be Tu B’Shvat, the ReBirthDay of Trees and of the Sacred Tree of Life. It will come on Sunday evening January 20 and daytime Monday January 21, which this year is also Martin Luther King’s Birthday and comes right after the Women’s March on January 19. How do we connect the Earth-oriented Tu B’Shvat with the activist-oriented MLK Day? Maybe by focusing on defeating environmental racism?

You can do early learning for your way into Tu B’Shvat in two ways:  

       Click to  https://jps.org/books/trees-earth-and-torah/    Explore the book after Hanukkah. It will help you think, and plan.

The book  and the Webinar will help you gather friends for a Tu B’Shvat Seder with four courses of fruit and nuts, four cups of wine, and a commitment to heal earth, water, air, and fire (energy).

NOW FOR HANUKKAH  ITSELF:

Overview: These suggestions are not intended to be commands or strictures. They are intended as pointers toward a way of making Hanukkah both serious and joyful, a grown-up time to bring people together using a Jewish festival to help heal the Earth from the climate crisis. Add or substitute your own ideas as you feel moved.

Sunday Evening Dec 2. Candle 1:  Learn and Build Community: Invite friends over. From my book Seasons of Our Joy, read aloud together the chapter on Hanukkah.  Each person around the circle can read a paragraph, and pause to discuss whenever anyone has a question or a suggestion.  Sing some Hanukkah songs, share latkes and doughnuts fried in olive oil.

Monday daytime, Dec 3, first day Hanukkah: Call your electric-power utility to switch your own home to wind-powered or solar-powered electricity. (For each home, 100% renewable power reduces CO2 emissions the same as not driving 20,000 miles in one year.)  Call your friends and suggest they also call your local utility.

Mon eve Dec 3, Candle 2:Click to https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/  for background information on what it means to organize a solar energy co-op,  

Daytime,  Tuesday Day 2, Dec 4.  Invite about five friends or neighbors, to gather on Tuesday evening for a conversation about organizing a neighborhood Solar Co-op.  Maybe include your rabbi or leaders of your congregation.

Tues evening Dec 4: Candle 3: Gather with the people you invited.  Click again to https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/  for background information, and spend the first hour reading and discussing what’s there. Then spend an hour talking about how to call a larger meeting of 20 to 50 people, with perhaps a speaker or panel. Set a date and each one of you jot down whom you will call.

Daytime Wednesday, Dec 5, Day 3. Start listing whom you want to call for the larger gathering, and make a few calls to speakers you agreed on.

Weds eve Dec 5, Candle 4: Play dreidl with kids, your partner, and/or close friends. Relax and have fun.  

Daytime Thurs, Day 4, Dec. 6. Write a letter to your own State Senator  and/or Delegate urging them to reduce subsidies for highways, increase them for mass transit. In states (like PA, NY) where high-profit oil/ gas companies are trying to “frack” Oil Shale deposits,

Hanukkah Candles or California Fires?

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Have the California wildfires and other events in the past month melted public apathy? Have we reached the threshold of public awareness necessary to force changes in climate and energy policy? Changes big enough to save our common home, our Planet Earth and all humanity, from global scorching, climate chaos?

And for the Jewish community, are there spiritual and political depths to Hanukkah that we can use to challenge the burning of our planet?

Hanukkah begins next Sunday evening, December 2, as we enter the 25th day of the wintry lunar moonth of Kislev, when moonlight is shrinking and sunlight is shortening.  As darkness grows, we light candles and we remember the Menorah in the ancient Temple, patterned on a tree -- with branches and twigs and flower-buds of sacred fire, lit with olive oil.

Let us light the candles on these eight nights with an intention, a focus:

 

Between the Fires:

A Kavvanah (Focus) for Kindling Candles of Commitment

We are the generation that stands  between the fires:

Behind us the flame and smoke 

that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima;

From the burning forests of the Amazon,

From the hottest years of human history

That bring upon us Melted ice fields. Flooded cities.

 Scorching droughts. Murderous wildfires.

Before us the nightmare of a Flood of Fire,

The heat and smoke that could consume all Earth.

 

It is our task to make from fire not an all-consuming blaze

But the light in which we see each other fully.

All of us different, All of us bearing One Spark.

We light these candle-fires to see more clearly 

That the Earth and all who live as part of it are not for burning.

We kindle these fires to see more clearly

The rainbow in the many-colored faces of all Life.

Blessed is the One within the many.

Blessed are the many who make One.

 

And after we look at the other question – has the moment come when at last the American public is ready to demand change? --  we will come back to Hanukkah.

In the last month, four events have opened the channels to a reinvigorated movement to end our climate crisis and prevent climate chaos.

1)  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  -- the world’s climate scientists --  agreed on a report that warned us we have a dozen years to reverse greenhouse gas emissions fully enough to prevent widespread climate disaster. Their fever thermometer sets a danger point at our planet’s reaching the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. That level will precipitate extreme drought, wildfires, floods and famines for hundreds of millions of people.

2)  The California wildfires in the fiercely urgent present, not a vaguely possible future, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and killed hundreds of people –- the result of climate-driven extreme drought turning forests into kindling wood.


3)  Opponents of the Trump policies won control of the US House of Representatives and its real though limited ability to hobble Trump. Most of them had focused their public campaigns on other aspects of Trumpist  subjugations – especially Congressional attacks on health care – but they understand the breadth of arrogance and cruelty that infused other specific policies as well. Those included the Trumpist policy of encouraging the Corporate Carbon Pharaohs who make   Hyperwealth billions in profit by stoking the fiery fever of the Earth.

 Serious interest is growing in at least two proposals:  One is a Carbon Tax and Dividend,  in which the US would tax carbon emissions and the money raised would go either to support a transition to renewable energy, or be provided in a dividend to every resident of the US. The other is a “Green New Deal,” which focuses on creating millions of well-paying jobs to provide a national network of renewable energy, comfortable and convenient mass transit, etc. The Green New Deal has not yet been shaped into policy proposals. The two approaches could be linked.

4)  And then --  despite anti-Earth lies and actions by high-up Triumpist officials – civil servants scattered in many agencies throughout the US government, empowered by a law requiring a quadrennial report on the estimated effects of global scorching, published a clear statement: If we do not change course in energy policy, millions of Americans will in the next few decades suffer from diseases and many from deaths caused by global scorching; millions of jobs will be lost as fires and floods decimate the economy.

Will these four events make a difference? For me, one index to a powerful change of mood was that 200 young people sat-in on Speaker-in-waiting Pelosi’s office to demand action for a Green New Deal from the next House of Representatives.

It is time for the Jewish people to awaken ourselves to our own ancient wisdom, rooted in the spiritual experience of farmers and shepherds and orchard-keepers with a single slender sliver of land. Now we need to gather the flowers and fruit that grow from that wisdom to join with others in a struggle to heal the whole round Earth and re-energize a far more human civilization.

We have been caught in a commitment that is worth great praise, a commitment to “social” justice that has drawn our attention away from our ancient ecological wisdom. These two are no longer separable: The burning of our Earth makes worse two aspects of social injustice: At the top, the arsonists gather in enormous unjust wealth. At the bottom, the poor suffer from that burning first and worst. It is eco-social justice we must pursue.

We can draw on four distinct but linked aspects of Hanukkah to inspire us:

  1. In a time of darkness and fear, Hanukkah beckons us to light up active hope and new commitment. The seasons of the Earth shape the Seasons of Our Joy and Justice.
  2. Though Antiochus the Idolator reigns in the White House, we know that bands of nonviolent Maccabees of many diverse communities can empower ourselves to dissolve his arrogance and his idolatry.
  3. The legend of the Menorah that burned for eight days’ light on the oil that should have kept alight for just one day reminds us that with devotion, we too can conserve energy and fulfill our vision of a more enlightened world.
  4. In the Haftarah we read on Shabbat Hanukah, the Prophet Zechariah proclaims the meaning of the Great Menorah – “Not by might and not by power but by My Breath/Wind / Spirit,” says the Infinite Breath of Life. (Zech 4: 1-7).  And Zechariah proclaims the ecstatic vision that in the rebuilt Temple there will be one olive tree on the left and one on the right of the Great Menorah. Each of the trees will pour its golden treasure of olive oil directly into the gold Menorah, without the need of human intervention. (Zech 4, continuing till verse 12.) This is the ultimate vision of the deep and direct connection of adam and adamah, Earth and human earthling – the deepest meaning of Hanukkah.

Here we see, as the Hebrew says, the Hanukkah menorah made by the Creator of the World:

 

Tomorrow I will share with you some suggestions about how to use the Eight Days of Hanukkah to learn, connect, and act in this moment. We can imagine a new song: “The Eight Nights of Hanukkah, my True Love said to me: Please heal My Earth!”

Blessings of light in a month of dark, hope-filled action in a time of doubt.— Arthur

Linda Sarsour writes on the Women's March & Facing Anti-Semitism

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear Shalom Center members,  friends, and readers,

In recent days there have been some calls from some people in the Jewish community to boycott the planned Women’s March on January 19. This call has been explained on the ground that some of the March leaders have been unwilling to specifically denounce Minister Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam for his many blatantly anti-Semitic views and speeches.

One of the March leaders cited in this call has been Linda Sarsour, an important leader of the Women’s March movement that became powerful the day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration as President, and onward from then.  I know that Ms. Sarsour has not only spoken words but also taken action strongly condemning anti-Semitism.  She has, for example, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help repair desecrated Jewish cemeteries and to assist the survivors of the “Tree of Life” synagogue mass murders in Pittsburgh.

[In this photo, Linda Sarsour is at the far right, next to Gloria Steinem along with other leaders of the Women's March in 2017]

So I was very surprised by these attacks, and very open to hearing Ms. Sarsour’s views on them. When I received a privately circulated letter from Linda Sarsour explaining her views on these matters, I was and am deepy moved by it, and asked her permission to share it with The Shalom Center‘s community.  She wrote back, “Please share as you see fit. Hope it brings some healing to broken hearts.  – Linda”

Here is her letter: Shalom, Arthur Waskow

I am requesting for all who read my email to approach it with an open mind and an open heart with the understanding that you may not agree with what I will put forth and that is okay with me. This is not an email to persuade or to convince, it is an email with my voice and my experience and my truth - one that may not be comfortable for some.

I know and recognize that our Jewish family is experiencing real pain, hurt and trauma. I know this stems from generational trauma and history of genocide and that these past few weeks have triggered insecurity, fear and anxiety. This is a difficult time and it requires us to be clear-eyed and also recognize the real threats so we can protect each other. We are all we got and this movement is all we got. 

Background

The Farrakhan controversy began 8 months ago when Jake Tapper and Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL "exposed/ promoted" a video of the Minister Farrakhan at an annual gathering for the Nation of Islam called Saviour's Day where Tamika D. Mallory was present along with 15,000 other people including many Black celebrities, business people, dignitaries and pastors. She was not a speaker.

Tamika has already discussed in length her longstanding relationship with the NOI after the brutal murder of her son's father 17 years ago and the positive role NOI played in this Black single teen mother's life. I won't rehash this but note it here for context. We heard painful and yet loving critiques from our Jewish friends, we had conference calls, meetings, we put out a statement that came out a few days late BECAUSE we have Jewish women on our staff who were impacted personally and working through a statement that was going to speak to all the concerns was not something that could happen overnight. Since then conversations continued and our important work continued.

Then the horrific Tree of Life shooting happened that took the life of 11 innocent Jewish Americans and all of a sudden Women's March was being asked to condemn the Minister Farrakhan. There was nothing new that happened between Women's March and the Minister. Folks decided to rehash 8 months ago. A white supremacist walked into a synagogue and killed 11 innocent people and the focus became the Minister Farrakhan and the NOI.

A few days before that a white supremacist sent dozens of pipe bombs to notable figures and a day before that a white supremacist killed two Black people at Kroger's (my Muslim American community also raised funds for these two innocent souls as well) after he could not get in to a locked Black church but here we were three women of color who are leading a powerful effective movement with millions of members being demanded to denounce Minister Farrakhan who had no relation to these white supremacists or these acts of violence.

Instead of coming together as a country to call out white supremacy and the violence being inspired by this Administration --- the deflection went to a Black man who has no institutional power. ---  This is a feature of white supremacy. 

This is not an email in defense of Minister Farrakhan. He can do that for himself. We have been CRYSTAL CLEAR in BOTH of our statements that we REJECT antisemitism and all forms of racism. We have been CLEAR that Minister Farrakhan has said hateful and hurtful things and that he does not align with our Unity Principles of the Women's March that were created by Women of Color. Minister Farrakhan will tell you himself that he does not belong to nor adhere to our progressive movement or yours. 

We are trained in Kingian nonviolence, the ideology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that at its core calls us to attack the forces of evil not those doing evil. We believe in redemption for people of color who have been discarded, denounced and condemned for centuries in this country. People who engage in acts or behaviors or hold beliefs based on their own historical trauma. It's why we are not ashamed to work with formerly incarcerated individuals who have committed crimes that for some in society would have determined and decided to give them death. We have been slandered for working with criminals - but we are committed to a movement that leaves no one behind.

Some folks who claim to be in the resistance or represent the resistance have no ideology or theory of change and have no understanding of the nuance that comes with organizing with communities of color because they have not done the work - and I pray that they do meet, build and learn because it will transform how they show up so they can help and not harm. 

Last year when a St. Louis Jewish cemetery was desecrated, with no hesitation I raised close to $165K for its restoration and because of the generosity of many in my community it allowed for the restoration of another Jewish cemetery in Colorado that was neglected for years. Immediately after the Tree of Life shooting, my colleague Tarek and I (through MPower Change) raised $206K to pay for ALL the funerals of the 11 innocent Jews that were killed. My role as a movement leader is not just to say profound words it is to set an example of what meaningful allyship looks like that is beyond thoughts and prayers. This was all erased.  oped after oped after oped after quotes from people who want to see their names in print and barely any mention of our contributions when they decided to tear us down. 

The labels of antisemitism were here before the Minister Farrakhan controversy 8 months ago. Who remembers when a campaign was started by the alt-right and right-wing Zionists to get me disinvited from a CUNY commencement speech last June? Who remembers the campaign against me last fall around my participation in a New School panel about the importance of combatting antisemitism in this moment with Jewish Voice for Peace and Jacobin Magazine? Minister Farrakhan was not even a factor yet in the conversation. I was already being labeled an antisemite and by extension the Women's March.

It's very clear to me what the underlying issue is - I am a bold, outspoken BDS -supporting Palestinian Muslim American woman and the opposition's worst nightmare. They have tried every tactic at their disposal to undermine me, discredit me, vilify me but my roots are too deep and my work is too clear and they have not succeeded so by proxy they began attacking my sister Tamika Mallory - knowing all too well that in this country the most discardable woman is a Black woman.

Tamika has been disinvited from some things, and her twitter account that I have access to is full of hate that is unfathomable, saturated with the N-words and worst things said to Black women. I will NEVER throw Tamika away. My loyalty to Black women who have risked their lives for all of us is and will be unshaken. I will continue to hold Tamika up because she has done that for too many people that society has written off. 

Tamika and I are women with our own agency. We speak for ourselves and ourselves alone. We are being stripped of our agency when every few months we are asked to condemn the Minister about words that we did not say, nonetheless the words of a man who did not consult us on his words. We are being held to standards that no one would hold themselves to.

I can share numerous examples of times when movement leaders could have said more and done more for various communities or in response to hateful things that have come from their communities and their "leaders"- blatant anti-blackness,  Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian rhetoric -  yet that is UNFAIR which is why I don't expect it nor demand it. As a Muslim, I know all too well that I am expected to answer for other Muslims’ actions when white folks never have a second thought about having to do that. ---  This is a feature of white supremacy. 

Let's also recognize who the majority is that leads the attacks against women of color leaders - not people of color led institutions or activists.  Wonder why. Who benefits when a powerful, effective and proven organization is attacked? Who benefits when the movement is divided? Who benefits from the confusion and the fractures? Not us. Not marginalized people. Not those who are counting on us to win.

Let us not fall for the longstanding tactics of white supremacy of divide and conquer. Unity is NOT uniformity. I am not building a unified movement where we will all agree on every single point and issue. I am building a complex, intersectional movement with the clear understanding that it will be messy and uncomfortable because if it was going to be easy someone would have done it a long time ago and we would all have our rights and be enjoying our lives in a free democratic country that treats us all with dignity and respect. But here we are.

We have seen UGLY. I pray that none of you have to experience what we have. A litany of death threats, unsolicited hate mail some with threats of violence. FBI visits to notify me of credible threats to my life that I had not even seen, the need for security detail, surveillance systems for my home - I don't say this for any pity or sympathy because I am NOT a victim, I am a survivor of a white supremacist system that wants to ban and rid itself of people like me and Tamika, I say this to say that these public toxic conversations invite these things to happen to us and we all have a responsibility to want us to be safe and out of harm's way. Tamika and I did not choose to be activists, this work chose us.

This is not a side job, or a labor of love - this is a matter of life and death for the communities we love and come from. 

I ask you all to model how we approach each other in the movement. Have conversations, reach out, ask questions, give benefit of the doubt, contextualize moments outside of your own personal feelings, remind yourself of the good this person or persons or organization has done. Use critical thinking skills.

Be honest with your feelings, speak from the I, propose solutions and not demands. Challenge people in your circles, engage people. Tearing down, threatening movement leaders with "say this or else we won't do this or if you don't say this then its meaningless" is not the way. 

The Women's March is an important institution in this resistance. We have organized the largest single day demonstration in American history, we have been the catalyst for 20,000 women to run for office, we have trained thousands of women in civil disobedience and direct action, organized the largest women led civil disobedience back in June around family separation, co-led close to 30 days of organizing around Kavanaugh and shifted the entire narrative, worked diligently with many of you on elections in key states winning back the House and NOW we are in the midst of organizing another HISTORIC mobilization to remind the Administration that we are still here as a resistance and send a message to Congress and yes to our friends in Congress that we will create the political will for them to be brave and hold them accountable to the platforms they ran on. 

Thank you for reading this far. I know for some this may not have been easy and may have triggered you and I see you. Sit with this. Absorb it from a place of love and commitment to making this movement work. I pray that our Jewish family recognizes that this resistance is for you too and that you embrace the solidarity we have shown because we have a lot more to give. I am available for one-on -ne conversations and am committed to making the time. 

Stay focused. The real threat is white nationalism and white supremacy. They want to destroy us all. We are all we got and you know that you can count on me and the Women's March leaders to continue to be bold and put it all on the line. We hope to see you on January 19th, 2019. We promise you that we have remarkable things in store and you will leave inspired once again. 

I will leave you with a quote that guides the way I show up in this work and I hope that it speaks to all of you. It is by an aboriginal woman by the name of Lila Watson and she said:

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time; but if you have come here because you believe that your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together."

My liberation is bound up with all of yours. 

In solidarity, 

Linda Sarsour 

 

*** *** ***

(Arthur back again:) As I said, I am deeply moved by this letter. Yet I do not agree with all of Ms. Sarsour’s views. I have, for example, publicly disagreed with the call of the “official” BDS [“Boycott Divest Sanction”] movement for total boycotts of all Israeli institutions, and I have publicly debated with its Palestinian leaders. (At the same time, I have supported boycotts of companies that are directly supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories on the West Bank.)  

My own opposition to a total BDS directed against all of Israeli society, along with my strong opposition to the Israeli government and the Occupation, comes from my own ties to the decent elements in Israeli society. So from my own rresponses I learn to respect the responses of a Palestinian-American with strong ties to the Palestinian community under Occupation in its homeland, and to understand why such a person would feel drawn to BDS. In this way I honor our disagreement  --  both sides of it – even while I hold strongly to my own view.

Should my disagreement on this question push me toward boycotting a movement that I strongly support – the Women’s March -- in which Ms. Sarsour is a leader? God forbid!

Indeed, just the opposite.  Contempt for women and their subjugation is an aspect of the white nationalism that also encourages fear and hatred of immigrants and refugees, Muslims, Blacks, Latinx, Native Americans, and the free press; that emboldens anti-Semitism; and that through the Trump-Netanyahoo alliance subjugates Palestinians. Resistance to white nationalism connects the fuller liberation of American women from sexism with the fuller liberation of the Jewish community from anti-Semitism.

In our very diversity, our different cultures, our disagreements, we are the rainbow refractions of ONE light. The Quran teaches that humanity was created in many different cultures precisely so that we can learn to understand each other. Jews affirm in the Sh’ma that the Divine Interbreath of Life is ONE. The Torah’s call that we pursue “justice, justice” – in its different voices --  is ONE. The love we owe each other is ONE.

To Lila Watson's and Linda Sarsour's challenge, I respond: We have indeed come together because we do believe that "your" liberation is bound up with "mine."  So let us work together!

Ashes, Stones, & Flowers: A Litany For Armistice Day or Memorial Day

Submitted by Editor on

In Memory of All Victims of War and Terrorism

[The litany requires either actually standing at a running river or a lake, or if that is not feasible bringing a large basin of water into the center of a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. If the basin, change "river" to "water" in the litany. At best, it includes having a list of names of people of various countries who have died and are dying as victims of war and terrorism. If these are not yet available for a particular act of violence, drop the recitation of names.]


Ashes, Stones, and Flowers:

For vibrant lives suddenly and shamelessly sacrificed, we lift up the ashes of our loss,

O Source of Life.


For the lives that continue, haunted forever by the pain of absence,

we lift up the ashes of our remorse, O Wellspring of Compassion.


For the conflagration of flames and nightmare images

forever seared into our memories,

we lift up the ashes of our pain, O Breathing Spirit of the World.


For the charred visions of peace and the dry taste of fear,

we lift up the ashes of our grief, O Infinite.

For all the deaths that have been justified

by turning the love of God or country into fanatical arrogance,

we lift up the ashes of our shame, O God.

 

As we cast these ashes into the troubled water of our times, Transforming One,

hear our plea that by your power they will make fertile the soil of our future

and by your mercy nourish the seeds of peace.

 

[The people recite the names of the dead.]

 

In silence, the people cast the ashes into the river

[or a bowl of water].

 

***

For the ways humanity pursues violence rather than understanding,

we lift up the stones of our anger, O Breathing Spirit of the World.

 

For the ways we allow national, religious and ethnic boundaries

to circumscribe our compassion, we lift up the stones of our hardness, O Wellspring of Compassion.

 

For our addiction to weapons and the ways of militarism we lift up the stones of our fear, O Source of Life.

 

For the ways we cast blame and create enemies we lift up the stones of our self-righteousness, O God

 

As we cast these stones into this ancient river, Transforming One, hear our plea:

 

Just as water wears away the hardest of stones,

so too may the power of your compassion soften the hardness of our hearts

and draw us into a future of justice and peace.

 

[The people recite the names of the dead.]

 

In silence, the people cast the stones into the river

[or a bowl of water].

 

***

For sowing seeds of justice to blossom into harmony,

we cast these flowers into the river, O Source of Peace.

 

For seeing clearly the many rainbow colors of humanity and earth,

we cast these flowers into the river, O Infinite.

 

For calling us to life beyond our grieving,

we cast these flowers into the river, O Breathing Spirit of the World.

 

As we cast these flowers into this ancient river,

Transforming One, hear our plea:

 

Just as water births life in a desert and gives hope to the wounded,

so too may the power of your nurturing renew our commitment to peace.

 

[The people recite the names of the dead.]

 

In silence, the people cast the flowers into the river

[or a bowl of water].

 

 

Litany by Rev. Patricia Pearce, former pastor of Tabernacle United Church, Philadelphia,

and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of The Shalom Center.

Yesterday, Against Trump; Tomorrow, For America

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

The vote yesterday accomplished something crucially important: It set up in the new House of Representatives a body to block the neo-fascist urges and practices of the Trump Administration and its Congressional toadies. It will be important to follow through on that by use of the subpoena power to investigate the mix of corrupt thieves, corporate shills, racists, closet anti-Semites, misogynists,  and white supremacists in Trumpland. 

Pittsburgh: Grieve, Heal, VOTE!

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

There are many disastrous levels to the murderous massacre at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

There is the immediate personal disaster of eleven lives destroyed, others wounded, families and friends bereft, a neighborhood traumatized. To all these, The Shalom Center as a body and I individually send blessings of swift refuah (healing) for the wounded,  deep respect and grief for the dead, and loving care for those bereaved.

There is the broader disaster of shock to the American Jewish community, until now so profoundly joyful to have found full acceptance in America these last several generations, after millennia of persecution elsewhere and elsewhen. 

Some of us took from that safety acceptance in becoming affluent, even wealthy, even powerful. Some of us took from that safety acceptance in becoming social critics, progressives, even radicals.

Less comfort as critics than as powerful, of course – but comfortable that all the clauses of the First Amendment affirmed our worth as Jews, as sacred fringes on conventional assumptions, as challengers who could wrestle not only with God (as our name “Yisrael” describes us) but with the rigidified habits of ourselves and others.  

And even worse, the broader disaster of facing an American government that our immigrant forebears who came here for freedom’s sake could not have fathomed:

 A government honeycombed with white supremacism, moving into neofascism,  calling forth from the shadows into boastful visibility those who concoct bombs to enforce their racism, who can openly revel in their contempt for women, who can turn hatred of foreigners into willingness to rip babies from their mothers’ breasts,  who can turn their greed for hyperwealth into willingness to torch the Earth that is our common home, our only home  -- and who can turn their latent anti-Semitism into mass murder.

How do we respond to these layered levels of disaster?

There is a time to wail and a time to pray.

There is a time to sing in sadness, and a time to sing in solidarity, and a time to sing in both:   --

Sing along with Holly Near, “It could have been me but instead it was you”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CadP4dRemYk

 There is a time to learn, and a time to act.

 There is a time to act by marching bold, and a time to act by sitting-in.

 There is a time to VOTE.

 Yes, we still have time – but not very much – to change this government controlled by hate-mongers and their toadies.

 Already millions have been casting early votes. Nine days from today, the Congress will be reshaped – or not. Or partly.

Either for the first time this corruptly rotten government will face a check upon its power – or its power will be authorized, unchecked.

Either we prepare for more tears as our goverrnment encourages more bombers, more bullies, more killers --

OR we change our government, by voting in great numbers:

We have but eight days to Grow the Vote – Grow it numerically, and Grow it in wisdom.

Long ago, the story tells us, at the edge of the Red Sea, the People paused in terror of the choices that they faced. Moses lifted his staff and prayed to God, the Breath of Life.

And God said, “Moses! My people are caught between Pharaoh’s Army behind and the tumultuous Sea ahead – and you stand there, piling prayer on prayer?  Tell My People to move forward!”

The People moved -- became truly a movement into freedom. The future opened, and the Breath of Life became a Hurricane of Change.

So may it be for us.

Four months ago, The Shalom Center began preparing teachings and symbols for "Share Sukkot: Grow the Vote!" We bumped into several unexpected concerns: "As a nonprofit, we can't do that." (Yes we can, as long as we don't name a specific candidate or party to support.) "There's a wide spectrum in our congregation; some people might get mad." (Maybe the agreement is broader after Pittsburgh. And who can oppose encouraging people to vote?)  "Blacks and Hispanics may have a stake in this election, but we don't. We're fine, regardless."(Gulp. Yeah, right.)

In the Jewish community, after Pittsburgh there should be no synagogue, no havurah, no Hillel, no organization of any sort that holds back from Getting Out The Vote and teaching the issues that grow from millennia of Torah.

And in the other communities of ethics and of Spirit, the same. We stand together -- Black churches, Muslim mosques, Sikh temples, Jewish synagogues have all been desecrated, violated. In all of them, blood has poured into the sacred vessels.

Our Grow the Vote resources are still useful. Click to  https://theshalomcenter.org/ShareSukkotResources

On  Saturday night,  I spoke for and to a vigil / action rally of about 300 Jews and other people in a Philadelphia park, allies in this moment of disaster and beyond.  We persevere. We mourn. We organize. We speak the truths we are able to discern.

We need your help to do that.

Please help The Shalom Center continue our work to heal our society’s deep wounds by clicking on the maroon “Contribute” button on he left-hand margin of this page.

Please help The Shalom Center continue our work to heal our society’s deep wounds by clicking on the maroon “Contribute” button on he left-hand margin of this page. On three pillars stand the future: Truth, Justice, and Peace. May each of us reach out to make them strong, and so win also for ourselves the blessings that they bring for all the world --  Arthur

 

New Webinar: “Sacred Seasons of the Sacred Earth”

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

 ANIBEW A

“Sacred Seasons of the Sacred Earth” is a series of four webinars focusing on the festivals of Hanukkah, Tu B’Shvat, and two sessions on Passover. We invite you to join with us. Below you will find first the facts and then the “Whys” beneath the facts.   

WHO, WHAT, WHEN

Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Alanna Kleinman, a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the Ira Silverman Memorial Intern at The Shalom Center, will explore these festivals and questions:

Hanukkah Webinar on Tues., Nov 13, 2018, 7-9 pm Eastern time

  • Hanukkah is the festival of lighting lights in a time of darkness. One of the legends about it is that its holiness involved conserving energy – making one day’s olive oil light up eight days. The Menorah at the heart of Hanukkah was designed by the Torah to be modeled on a living tree, as it is portrayed in the  medieval graphic just above.
    How could we use the eight days of Hanukkah to light our inner spirits in a dark time, and to light our whole society to heal our wounded Earth by conserving energy? Hanukkah itself begins December 2.
  • Tu B’Shvat Webinar on Wed., Jan 9, 2019,  7-9pm Eastern time
    Tu B’Shvat, the ReBirthDay of the trees after a winter of hibernation, is also seen as the ReBirthDay of the Tree of Life – the sacred impulse within us and all the world to grow and be more fruitful.  How can we shape the evening and the day to benefit our own souls, the soul of our country, and the soul of our rejuvenated Earth? Tu B’Shvat begins the evening of Sunday, January 20, and ends the evening of Monday January 21. That Monday is also the Martin Luther King Birthday Holiday!  Is there a connection between the two?

  • Passover Webinar Wed., Apr 3 & 10, 2019,  7-9pm Eastern time

  • Passover comes at the peak of Spring. It celebrates the birthing of lambs, new barley, a new people, and Freedom (which itself is a birthing of new possibilities, new creativity). We recall a Pharaoh who brought death on children and plagues – eco-disasters – on the Earth.
    What does it mean to free ourselves today and heal the Earth? Passover begins Friday evening, April 19

 

Together we can make new meanings for these festivals. This webinar series will be interactive, drawing forth the insights of all who take part. In that way it will enrich the lives of each person and of the whole community of participants.

WHERE & HOW

We will meet by Zoom conference, making it possible by video for us to see each other face-to-face or by telephone. The Zoom information will appear when you register. We will record each session and send the video link a few days after the Webinar itself.

Each session will cost $18. If you register for all four now, the series will cost $62, a $10 discount.

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/ss4sereg

WHY

Why are we doing this?

Because a great deal has changed in America, on Planet Earth,  and in Jewish thought, practice, and creativity since Reb Arthur originally wrote and Bantam published his classic Seasons of Our Joy: A Modern Guide to the Jewish Festivals in 1981.

Indeed, in just the last few days the world’s scientists have intensified their warnings that we have at most a dozen years to prevent disruptions of human civilization far worse than the California wildfires and the Florida hurricanes that have torn at us.

How do we draw on our deepest wisdom to inspire far more commitment to act, to heal our Mother Earth from the wounds that she is suffering?

We need to strengthen both our interior spiritual gumption and menshlichkeit and our communal spiritual compassion. The Jewish festival spiral is itself rooted in the Earth, in its seasons of grief and joy and action, birth and covenant, fulfillment and seed-sowing. The festivals weave the inner and the outer into fringes of connection.

They are among the gifts that Judaism can bring into the efforts of all humanity to correct our own misdeeds toward Mother Earth. But the festivals can do this only if we draw from their reservoirs of wisdom into rivers of action.

Join us for this series. Register now!

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/ss4sereg

Murder Inc., A Saudi-US Rhapsody in Blood:

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Saudi Prince, US President, $$$, & Yemen

All the accumulating evidence indicates that Saudi Crown Prince and actual dictator Mohammed bin Salman almost certainly ordered the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a critical independent-minded Saudi journalist who had been writing for the Washington Post.

The immediate response of the US president and his “princely” son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was to try to explain away Prince MbS’s role and then as the evidence of murder piled up, to make clear: No matter what he did, Saudi money was too valuable to break relations or even embargo US weapons.

This is literally Murder Incorporated. Murder for Money. 

(Photo by Felix Josephat)

What was Saudi money buying? High-tech US weaponry. And what were these weapons for? A war against the people and especially the children of Yemen. A war that uses not only US-made weapons but the US armed forces themselves to seek targets for Saudi bombers to shatter food shipments into Yemen, to bomb a bus full of schoolchildren.

If the US-Saudi war against Yemen continues, 13 million Yemenites are in danger of starvation. A genocidal war.

This is a symphonic Rhapsody in Blood.   

For scenes of that bloody war, click on these videos compiled by MoveOn. Be warned: The violence is graphic:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moveon/videos/1966419506752782/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoveOn/status/1038052552212996097

What is this war about? A majority of Yemenites are Shia Muslims, most of them desperately poor. They were being oppressed by a government dominated by Sunnis. They rebelled against their tyrannical government, and forced it into exile.

But the Saudis are fanatically hostile to Shia Islam, they are furious at the regional importance of Shia Iran, and they entered into a three-cornered alliance against the Shia, aimed ultimately not only at Yemen but Iran.

This Triple Alliance brought together the hyper-dictatorial Saudi government, the would-be anti-democratic Trumpian US government, and the increasingly repressive Netanyahu Israeli government, not only bent on smashing the possibility of a self-governing and peaceful Palestine alongside Israel but more and more attacking Israeli Jewish critics and American Jewish opponents.

This Triple Anti-Iranian Alliance faced a problem. The Obama Administration, worried by the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, had put together an extraordinary diplomatic process in which Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the US achieved a unique agreement for total nuclear disarmament for Iran, total surveillance of Iran’s internal society and geography to prevent nuclear rearmament, and an end to US and other international sanctions against Iran.

That diplomacy was a brilliant fulfillment of the profound Jewish spiritual wisdom of the prayer: “Spread over us the sukkah of shalom”  -–-  the fragile, vulnerable hut that welcomes peace. How can such fragility bring peace? Because when conflicting nations see how vulnerable they both are, they can choose to make peace. The US and four other powerful nations felt vulnerable to the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons. Iran felt vulnerable to the reality of damaging sanctions. So the two sides built a sukkah of shalom..

The Trumpists decided to destroy that sukkah of shalom, even though all the US allies wanted to preserve it. The Trumpists are instead obsessed with their desire to destroy the present Iranian governmental system. 

The next act in this Symphony in Blood is intended by the Trump-MbS-Kushner Murder Inc to mount intense pressures against Iran so as to overturn its government. Pressures that can easily turn into war when Iran resists.

Such a war would be far more damaging to the US than its self-destructive war against Iraq. Iran is far bigger, far more united against foreign enemies, and far more able to mount a strategic challenge to the US than was Iraq.

Of course, now that Obama diplomacy has ended Iranian nuclear-weapons research, Iran would be vulnerable to nuclear attack. And the Trumpian impulse to dominate and destroy has turned into  ending a key nuclear arms-control treaty with Russia, planning a trillion-dollar “modernization” of the US H-Bomb arsenal that can already bring on “nuclear winter” and wipe out life on earth, and redefining H-Bombs into “conventional” weapons.

The torture, murder, and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi was simply the unleashing of cruelty by those who see their power not as an instrument for compassion and healing but as a weapon for domination. Torture and murder of a critic are necessary to back up a genocidal war and the obsessive need for total domination.

It is no accident that when the President lied about  George Soros, an independent-minded pro-democracy billionaire (and Jewish at that!) -- by tweeting or vomiting the lie that Soros had "paid" for a caravan of Central Americans fleeing violent gangs --  within days a bomb is found in the Soros family mailbox.

What should happen now? The US Congress should forbid arms sales to Saudi Arabia, should forbid the use of US armed forces to assist in any way the Saudi war against Yemen, should call for UN sanctions until the Saudis stop attacking Yemen, and should require the reestablishment of the agreement to prevent an Iranian nuclear arsenal.

And if not?

 Let us not pretend to be surprised when the flood of blood that comes from killers who fly a national flag and wear a nation’s uniform calls forth more killers who fly no flag and wear no uniform.

Murder Inc. will buy us Murder Unlimited.

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