2 Dec 2022

Israel/Palestine

by | posted in: What We Think | 0

We believe in a Judaism beyond Zionism

We appreciate the important role of the land of Israel in Jewish tradition, liturgy, and identity. At the same time, we reject the fusing of Judaism or any religion with political nationalism. We oppose Jewish supremacy in all its manifestations and the construct of the Jews as the chosen people. We embrace the Jewish teachings that uplift the sacredness of all peoples. We believe in a Judaism of love and transformation, not domination and power over.

We openly acknowledge that the creation of an ethnic Jewish nation state in historic Palestine resulted in an injustice against the Palestinian people – an injustice that continues to this day.

We reject any ideology that insists upon exclusive Jewish entitlement to the land. Just as we recognize that Turtle Island (i.e., North America) is the home of indigenous peoples, we simultaneously embrace that the land of Israel/Palestine has historically been considered sacred by many faiths and home to a variety of peoples, ethnicities, and cultures. In our advocacy and activism we oppose Israel’s ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people. We seek a future that includes full civil and human rights for all who live in the land – Jews, Muslims, Christians, Palestinians, Druze, and Bedouin, and others.

Follow Rabbi Michael Lerner:

Rabbi | Editor | CEO

Rabbi Michael Lerner holds a Ph.D. in philosophy (1972) and a second Ph.D. in psychology (1977), is editor of Tikkun www.tikkun.org, executive director of the Institute for Labor and Mental Health, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls in Berkeley, chair of the international Network of Spiritual Progressives, and author of 12 books, most recently Revolutionary Love published by the University of California Press (more info about this book at www.tikkun.org/lj). Lerner was recently described by Professor Cornel West of Harvard U. as “one of the most significant prophetic public intellectuals and spiritual leaders of our generation” and Keith Ellison, Attorney General of the State of Minnesota, says: “The caring society is the only realistic path for humanity to survive, and in Revolutionary Love Rabbi Lerner lays out a powerful and compassionate plan for building that caring society.” Talking about his book Revolutionary Love, Gloria Steinem, a founding editor of Ms. Magazine, says “Michael Lerner takes the universal qualities wrongly diminished as ‘feminine’—caring, kindness, empathy, love—and dares to make them guides to a new kind of politics that can challenge the cruelty, competition, and dominance wrongly elevated as ‘masculine.’ Revolutionary Love opens our minds and hearts to a fully human way of living and governing.”

Latest posts from