17 November 2011, Tikkun תיקון http://www.tikkun.org (USA)
Rabbi Lerner has just come out with a new book, Embracing Israel/Palestine, which has been enthusiastically praised by Archibishop Desmond Tutu, former Chair of the Israeli Knesset Avrum Burg, former President Jimmy Carter, West Bank Palestinian peace activist Sami Awad, scholar of religion Robert Bellah, and many others (see below). He shows how to understand the history of the conflict in a way that is fair to both sides and avoids demonizing either side. He also argues that no political deal at a negotiating table has a chance of working without a fundamental transformation of consciousness-- and that we in the West can help shape the transformation needed to provide the security, justice, and mutual compassion necessary for a lasting peace.
Would you like to host Rabbi Lerner in your community center, university, church, synagogue, mosque, bookstore, political organization or anywhere else where you could get a large attendance to hear him? He can also talk about the Occupy movement, strategies to transform American society, the Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the US Constitution (a requirement to eliminate all private monies or corporate monies in elections as well as to require corporate environmental and social responsibility), or the Global Marshall Plan. All these can work together with his talk on Israel/Palestine if you wish. Can you raise funds to cover his travel expenses and speaking stipend? If yes, please email me (ashley@tikkun.org).
You can order the book at www.tikkun.org/embracing or send a $20 check made out to Tikkun to 2342 Shattuck Ave, #1200, Berkeley, CA 94704. This book is published by North Atlantic Books and distributed by Random House. Please also encourage your local bookstore to carry Embracing Israel/Palestine; tell them it's a perfect gift for Christmas/Chanukah or other festive occasions. Bookstores and groceries can call 1-800-733-3000 or email customerservice@randomhouse.com to arrange for delivery of the books. It is also available on Kindle and through Amazon.com.
Thanks in advance for your help in spreading the word! Even better if you'd create a study group with people in your community-- and we have an online study guide. (Click here to visit the book's website.) It's a book that is guaranteed to challenge simplistic thinking on both sides. It has a serious analysis of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that must be dealt with in both Palestine and Israel and a nuanced and generous account of the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis--and a strategy to overcome all this. Please read it!
Ashley Bates
Assistant Editor, Tikkun
Endorsements
Rabbi Michael Lerner is one of America's most significant progressive intellectuals and political leaders, and Embracing Israel/Palestine is not only a great conceptual breakthrough in dealing with the Middle East but also demonstrates a methodology for how best to think about global and domestic U.S. politics. For many decades Muslims, around the world have been cheered by Rabbi Lerner's challenge to the media’s demeaning of our religion and dismissal of the rights of Palestinians, just as they have been challenged by his insistence that they recognize the importance of truly and deeply accepting Israel's right to exist in peace and security. —Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first elected Muslim to the U.S. Congress and chair of the seventy-member Progressive Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives
Embracing Israel/Palestine is a must-read for those who care about peace in the Middle East. It is provocative, radical, persuasive, and, if given the attention it deserves, could make a major contribution to reconciliation. Please read this book! —Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Rabbi Michael Lerner provides us with a brilliant and hopeful vision of how to transform the Middle East from a cauldron of violence to a vanguard of peace. I hope every American will read this book and apply its lessons to change how we deal with the Middle East. For several decades Lerner has been a remarkably courageous rabbi, defying the orthodoxies of some in his own community to insist that Biblical teachings require recognizing the equal value to God of both Israelis and Palestinians. Challenging the extremists on all sides, Lerner insists on the practical and ethical necessity to embrace both Israel and Palestine with compassion and love. Lerner presents us with a path to peace that will require our replacing the strategy of domination and war with what Lerner appropriately describes as the far more effective path to homeland security: the strategy of generosity and genuine caring for the well-being of everyone involved. This is practical and effective advice for the world. I hope every American will read this book and apply its lessons in change how we deal with the Middle East. —Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States of America
Embracing Israel/Palestine is a terrific book by a pioneer of global transformation. Out of love for both Israelis and Palestinians as equal creations of God, Rabbi Lerner offers us the deepest way out of the bloody conflict. Not just a political agreement, not a simple "real estate" and power sharing transaction, Embracing Israel/Palestine draws from a deep psychological and political understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East. Lerner's book is coming out of a loving heart and a powerful analytic mind. He offers us a strategy of trust that could heal and repair the mentalities of fear that limit the current perspectives that dominate our politics. —Avrum Burg, former chair of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization, speaker of the Knesset, and interim president of Israel
Rabbi Michael Lerner is one of the great prophetic figures of our time. He inherited this mantle from his teacher and my hero, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. This book should be the indispensable work on the delicate and difficult effort to keep track of the precious humanity of Jews and Palestinians in the epic struggles for security and justice. —Cornel West, author of Race Matter and professor of African American studies and religion at Princeton University
Rabbi Michael Lerner is one of the very few Jewish leaders in the Diaspora who has consistently challenged slavish Jewish pandering to right-wing Israeli chauvinism and messianism, opposed the Occupation of the West Bank and the crimes of many Israeli settlers, supported Palestinian rights and justice for the Palestinian people, called for an end to religious coercion and separation of state and synagogue in Israel, yet has simultaneously retained a strong commitment to the safety and well-being of Israel and the Jewish people. He has been a fierce critic of those who move from legitimate criticism of Israeli policies to illegitimate anti-Semitism or attempts to destroy Israel. His voice needs to be heard by Israelis, Palestinians, and all those who seek peace for the Middle East. —Uri Avnery, former member of the Knesset and current chair of the Israeli peace movement Gush Shalom
I've read dozens of books on the subject, but none has the potential this book has to inform wisely and fairly, mobilize good will effectively, and motivate action intelligently toward needed change. Rabbi Lerner’s generous Jewish vision warms my Christian heart, and his deep integration of spirituality, theology, political philosophy, and human kindness serves as a model I hope many will join me in following. —Brian McLaren, Christian Evangelical Pastor and author of A New Kind of Christianity
Embracing Israel/Palestine is a masterpiece among the myriads of studies dedicated to the numerous human catastrophes of our times. No matter how many books you've read on this subject, Rabbi Lerner will give you a new and powerfully insightful perspective that could empower you to play a significant and hopefully effective role in healing this conflict—and in doing so beginning to heal the world. —Zygmunt Bauman, author of Modernity and the Holocaust and Postmodernity and Its Discontents
Michael Lerner takes a courageous, enlightening position in Embracing Israel/Palestine, not only in speaking as an American Jewish rabbi who cares about both countries, but in his conviction that only real attention to the suffering and historical traumas of both sides can bring about peace. The intellectual clarity and psychological sophistication of his presentation is matched by his passionate plea for the transformation of religion from a tool for political partisanship to a basis for genuine renewal of commitment to justice and recognition of all peoples. His argument breaks the conventional splitting between the pragmatic and the idealistic, making a convincing case that only respect for the needs of all peoples will bring about the will and the possibility of resolution. —Jessica Benjamin, psychoanalyst and author of The Bonds of Love
Rabbi Lerner has been passionately advocating a new era of peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land utilizing the interfaith resources. We are confident that this spirit of mutual respect and cooperation can work in the Holy Land as well. There are enough resources in our scriptures, traditions, and history to make such solidarity legitimate. I hope that Muslims, Jews, and Christians will use Embracing Israel/Palestine as a jumping off point for discussing how our three faiths can work together to bring peace and justice to the Middle East. —Sayyid M. Syeed, National Director at the Islamic Society of North America’s Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances
This book would change the world if there were enough people who would open their eyes and read it. Lerner uses Israel/Palestine as a prism to look at the world as a whole—rife with conflicts of many kinds, a number of which involve the United States. He comes to the wildly "utopian" conclusion that the solution to these conflicts can only come by following the Biblical injunctions to love the stranger. Far from being utopian or unrealistic, Lerner shows that this will be the only practical way to keep the alliance of nationalism and capitalism that rules the world today from destroying the fabric of natural and social life. I hope this book will be used widely in courses in political science and sociology in our universities, not only in courses about the Middle East. —Rober Bellah, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, author of Religion in Human Evolution, and co-author of Habits of the Heart
There are good books and there are needed books. This book is both. It is good because Michael Lerner gives an insightful account of the history and politics of struggles between Israelis and Palestinians. It is needed because he grasps the religious underpinnings of this conflict and his spiritually progressive perspectives offer hope for peace. What Rabbi Lerner has to say will be especially helpful for my fellow Evangelicals who must balance their justifiable love for Israel with a cry for justice for the Palestinian people. —Tony Campolo, Evangelical pastor and professor of sociology at Eastern University
web: www.spiritualprogressives.org
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