Por Carlos López Dzur / Fundador de la Revista Virtual Sequoyah La Naranja / OC
En semanas recientes, el hogar del fundador y director de la Revista Tikkum y la organización de igual nombre sufrió un atentado en manos de fanáticos. La sede del grupo Tikkum, cuya labor lleva 24 años de servicio y orientación en cuanto a lo que son los verdaderos ideales del Pueblo Judío y no sus malos políticos, está en Berkeley, California, y ha sido crítica de cómo la Derecha sionista provocó el fin del proceso de paz impulado por el Ministro israelí Yitzhak Rabin, quien buscara el fin de la Ocupación de territorios y asentamientos ilegales. La vandalización del hogar del Rabino Michael Lerner, los mensajes de odio contra él dejados, han dicho sus voceros no han sido diferentes a uan docena de emails que se cuelan en su correspondencia desde que iniciara su trabajo y revista bimensual y las amenazas de muerte que se le hacen cobardemente por teléfono, pero ya la escalada es mayor, como prueba la intrusión criminal a su casa.
Como un gesto solidario con los hermanos espirituales de Tikkum y con su idea de que «nadie tiene por qué sentirse inseguro en sus hogares por expresar sus puntos de vistas éticos y políticos», reproducimos esta de la organización y la Red de Progresistas Espirituales (NSP) (que incluye judíos y no judíos, teístas y ateos y que apoya a la Tikkun Magazine, en una labor que no es otra que trabajar por la noció de que el amor y la generosidad son «los verdaderos caminos para la paz y seguridad» en el mundo. Quien crea en el «cambio no-violento» y la «libertad de consciencia», sin duda, hallará muy interesante la respuesta de Tikkum a las inquitudes que ha levantado este atentado. ¿Qué se puede hacer ante estas olas de fanatismo y qué realmente quiere la organización Tikkum Organization?
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After Attack on Rabbi Lerner's Home: What you Can do to Help?
You can help us demand of the media that they publicize this incident and, equally importantly, the meaning of the incident for Americans and for American Jews. And you can demand of the Jewish world that they stop encouraging incitement by allowing people or groups to be labeled as anti-Semitic or self-hating Jews when the only evidence for those charges is disagreeing with the policies of the State of Israel or supporting strategies like boycott, divestment or sanctions against the State of Israel or against products produced by settlers in the Occupied Territories, or calling for an end to US military aid to Israel, publicizing the human rights violations taking place in Israel. or taking other non-violent but confrontational approaches to changing Israeli policy.
While Rabbi Lerner has written a book called The Socialism of Fools anti-Semitism on the Left and is well aware that this phenomenon is real and needs to be struggled against, his book takes pain to distinguish legitimate criticism or non-violent action against Israeli policies that are done in a spirit of respect for the humanity of the Jewish people, on the one hand, and actions and criticisms that reflect a double standard toward Jews or a determination to demean Jews or Israel that is not applied to other human rights violating states, on the other hand.
So, yes, there is anti-Semitism among some on the Left and some who criticize Israel, but, NO, the criticisms of Israel's policies or the advocacy of non-violent tactics of the sort mentioned above are not in and of themselves either anti-Semitic or prima facie evidence that Jews who support these activites are «self-hating Jews».
This labeling as anti-Semitic or self-hating Jews of those who seek to challenge Israeli policy is increasingly emptying those words of serious negative meaning, which is a big mistake. If everyone who challenges Israeli policy is anti-Semitic (which would include a majority of American Jews but not a majority of those one encounters in most synagogues or official Jewish institutions) then it may (mistakenly) appear to people that it's no big thing to be anti-Semitic. And that is very dangerous for the Jewish people.
To take a classic case of this rhetoric that can incite people to violence, consider Alan Dershowitz's op-ed piece in the Jerusalem Post on April 29th in which he labeled as «Rabbis for Hamas» all the 39 rabbis who had signed a statement urging South African Jews to allow Judge Goldstone to attend his grandson's bar mitzvah. He went on to say: «And Michael Lerner is the worst of them (and that's saying a lot).»
Everyone knows that Hamas is a violent terrorist group, and that Dershowitz has publicly championed the notion that the US and Israel have the right to take preemptive strikes to kill through «targeted assassinations» those who they suspect of being terrorists. So here, two days before the vandalism at Rabbi Lerner's home, Dershowitz associates Lerner and the others with Hamas and terrorism. We don't believe that Dershowitz ever explicitly intended a violent outcome and we don't know for sure that his article directly led to the violence in this case. We do know that it contributes to a climate of intimidation of those who wish to speak a truth different from that of the right-wing Zionists and that the Jewish world should be doing what they can to isolate and restrain this kind of language and demeaning of fellow Jews and of Jewish-friendly non-Jews who criticize Israeli policies or support non-violent means to change its policies.
In that respect, the response of the Jewish world has been misleading. Some of the Jewish institutions have issued statements like the following that came from the San Francisco Jewish Federation and the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL): «We unequivocally condemn criminal acts perpetrated against Rabbi Lerner's home. Political disagreements must be resolved in a civil manner, and not by resorting to violence.
Our communities are especially disturbed that this crime targeted Rabbi Lerner at his home, thereby conveying to him the message that he may not be safe there. We are encouraged by the responsiveness of the Berkeley Police Department to this incident, and we urge its officers to investigate this crime as thoroughly as possible. The entire community must send a message to the perpetrators that we reject violence and criminality as a means to express our political opinions.»
This is at once a step in the right direction and yet an evasion of the central issue. We didn't expect that they would endorse violence. What we must demand is that these Jewish organizations publicly and repeatedly make attempts to stop the incitement to violence that happens on a daily basis inside the Jewish community and towards tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews who speak out about Israeli treatment of Palestinians or who organize to try to change Israeli policies.
The Jewish world needs to stop labeling those people as self-hatingand or anti-Semitic, unless they have other grounds besides their strong and/or repeated advocacy of political positions about the State of Israel that critique Israeli policies or seek non-violently to change them. If we can get some change in the Jewish world in this direction, we can transform this attack on Lerner into a moment of repentance and transformation that would be good for the Jews, good for Israel and the Palestinians, and good for the U.S.
Until that happens, these attacks may increase, not just again Lerner but against others who speak out, and may even spread to attacks against non-Jews who support Obama (since many of the more extremist elements in the Zionist movement believe that Obama and his Administration seek to destroy Israel or to render it powerless in the face of hostile enemies, and hence could easily start manifesting the incitement or even violence toward Obama or his supporters that they have been willing to champion against peace activists in this country or in Israel).
Meanwhile, we should also make clear our opposition to similar kinds of incitement that we sometimes hear coming from Palestinian circles or Arabic or Muslim circles toward Jews--and we must similarly demand that the leadership of those communities take the same steps of isolating and preventing incitement in their communities just as we should be asking that of the Jewish world--for example on university campuses or in public debates about boycotts / divestment/sanctions. When, for example, Jews are told that they have the blood of innocents on their hands because of the activities of some members of the IDF (Israeli army) in Israel, thereby blaming all Jews for the activities of some, this is racism straight out, just as it was when Blacks were blamed for the criminal activities of some Blacks.
The Jewish people never voted in a referendum to give the State of Israel or its army the right to speak or represent all Jews around the world, despite their desire to do so, and Jews must not be blamed for the actions of that State unless the freely join organizations or synagogues that do in fact claim to be supportive of Israel's policies and its Occupation of the West Bank. So when liberals or progressives stand by passively while these kinds of statements are made by Palestinians or by Jews whose desire to prove themselves «true allies» to the Palestinian people leads them to extreme and distorted statements of this sort, understandably wanting to not interfere with the event happening at the moment, they actually are doing a great disservice to the cause of peace and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis-- not only because these statements are racist and should on moral grounds be condemned at the time they are being made, but also because they are then used by the Jewish establishment to discredit the peace forces and to raise the level of fear in the Jewish world against anyone critical of Israeli policies.
But at this particular moment in early May, the issue that has made itself apparent in the attack on Lerner's home is the hate-language and permission to demean and incite that takes place in many (not all) corners of the Jewish world, and so it is appropriate now to foucs on the changes needed to stop Jewish incitement.
So here is what you can do: write and call people in the media to urge them to do a news story (no national American or European media have picked up on this yet), to interview Rabbi Lerner, and to write editorials condemning incitement. Similarly, letters should be sent to national Jewish organizations asking them to challenge the free use of the charge of anti-Semtiism or self-hating Jews among Jews in their communities who are unhappy when they hear others criticizing Israeli policies or behavior.
To contact Rabbi Lerner either at RabbiLerner@tikkun.org or through his assistant will@tikkun.org 510 644 1200. And ask them to raise the larger question of how to preserve freedom of conscience for people to challenge Israeli policies without being demeaned or facing this kind of vandalism of their own private homes.
And yes, there is another thing you can do. You could yourself join the Network of Spiritual Progressives (for non-Jews as well as Jews, for atheists as well as theists) and help support Tikkun Magazine! Contacts: Natalie Wolner: natalie@tikkun.org or Will Palsey: will@tikkun.org 510-644-1200 Mailing address: 2342 Shattuck Ave, Box 1200, Berkeley, Ca. 94704.
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Tantralia, IV, Los poderes sensibles / El hombre enamorado de la vida escribe «Yo soy la muerte»: Carlos López Dzur / Breve Antología: En Charkito / Una hermenéutica kabbalística de la Familia, los Amigos y la Nación / Para sentir soledad y la miseria / Cómo conocí la soledad / «Teth cumplió 33 años»: Carlos López Dzur / «Teth cumplió 33 años»: Carlos López Dzur / Parte 2 / «Teth cumplió 33 años»: Carlos López Dzur / Parte 3 / Luis Muñoz Marín / Blogsite: Carlos López Dzur / Meditación sobre Laocoonte / Los niños dopaminales / Los embrutecedores / La gran hipocresía dominialista
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