Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 11:57:29 -0700
From: Michael Lerner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Would you please send this out to all your email lists--because some
people on those list may wish to join us, or be strengthened in their
resolve to make public statements.
Thanks.
Rabbi Michael Lerner
The TIKKUN Community Invites you to participate with us in CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE IN PROTEST OF US FAILURE TO INTERVENE in the Middle East
-- AND CALLS FOR U.S. governement TO TAKE LEAD IN CREATING A UN
INTERNATIONAL PEACE KEEPING FORCE TO INTERVENE, SEPARATE AND PROTECT
PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS FROM EACH OTHER. ACTIONS IN D.C., NYC, AND
SF ON THURSDAY, APRIL 11
Here is the overview of the coming days.
Wednesday, April 10:
7:30 p.m. Talk by Michael Lerner about the need for an
International Force to Intervene in the Middle East. Temple Shalom,
8401 Grubb Road (corner of East/West Highway), Chevy Chase Md.
Thursday, April 11th
10:30 assemble at State Dept. 2201 C Street, N.W., Washington DC
(meet at corner of 22nd & C)
11:00 a.m. demonstration and possible civil disobedience--with Cornel
West and Michael Lerner and others from the Tikkun Community. Civil
disobedience will depend on events in the Middle East and the US
stance--we are calling for the US, working through the UN, to
constitute an Internation Force to Intervene. PLEASE NOTE: you don't
have to get arrested to help make this demonstration important. Just
come--there may not be arrests, but if there are, they will need lots
of support.
[WOULD YOU HELP US PLEASE BY CALLING NATIONAL MEDIA AND ASKING THEM
TO COVDER THIS STORY OF A DEMONSTRATION DEMANDING US TO CONSTITUTE
THROUGH THE UN AN INTERNATIONAL PEACE KEEPING FORCE TO MILITARILY
INTERVENE AND SEPARATE AND PROTECT ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS FROM
EACH OTHER. They can call Liat or Deb at 415 575 1200 for more
information ]
Here is the concrete information you may need:
For Washington, D.C.:
****Meet Wednesday night, April 10, 2002. 7:30-9 p.m.
Michael Lerner will speak on the topic "Prophetic Witness: Direct
Action to Stop the Killings in the Middle East" at Temple Shalom,
8401 Grubb Road, Chevy Chase, Maryland (on East-West Highway close to
16th Street).
Contact Judith Lelchook at (202) 782-4319 [daytime] or Yael Flusberg
at (202) 745-2630 [evenings] for more information.
Bring your friends. We look forward to seeing you there.
******Thursday morning: April 11 Nonviolent Protest (and possibly
civil disobedience) at The U.S. State Department (near Foggy Bottom
subway station) Be there at 10:30 a.m. Action begins: 11 a.m. Only
people committed to non-violence are welcome. Let us know if you are
coming: [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you know you are planning to
participate in nonviolent civil disobedience, please send us your
name, name of contact person should you be arrested and their phone
number and email, your driver's license or other i.d. number, your
home address, and your home phone and email. Do not resist arrest.
And come on Wednesday night to the event at Temple Shalom if that is
at all possible for you. Contact us: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call
415 575 1200
***************
In NEW YORK CITY Thursday, April 11: Vigil at Israel Consulate with
possible non-violent civil disobedience. Tikkun Community will follow
thelead of John Deats,. of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. More
info:Rev. Richard Deats Editor, Fellowship magazine Box 271 Nyack,
NY 10960 845.358-4601. Fax 845-358-4924
****Then, that evening, April 11, Rabbi Lerner will speak and meet
with people interested in The Tikkun Community at the Church of St
Paul and st. Martin, northeast corner of 86th and West End Ave, 7
p.m. Spread the word, please! And bring dessert!
************************
San Francisco: Thursday April 11 Israeli Consulate this Thursday at
Noon at 456 Montgomery Street between Sacramento and California in
downtown San Francisco, where we will hold a press conference during
which we will present officials at the Consulate with a DECLARATION
OF BAY AREA JEWS FOR AN END TO THE OCCUPATION AND FOR AN IMMEDIATE
CESSATION OF VIOLENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Possible non-violent civil
disobedience,depending on world circumstances.
Then, Sunday, April 21st: 1:30-6 p.m. West Coast Teach-In on The
Middle East. Sponsored by The TIKKUN COMMUNITY in San Francisco
(check the Calendar part of The TIKKUN COMMUNITY home page--screen
down on www.tikkun.org-- in a few days for more details).
*******************************
Boston: Sunday April 14
Rabbi Lerner and Cornel West speak to The Tikkun Community of'New
England. 1 p.m. at Belmont Methodist Church.
Spiritual Transformation and Social Change
American Jews and Christians Together
Rabbi Michael Lerner - Responses by Harvard Professor Cornel West
7 Workshops on: Reform of the Catholic Church, Peace in the Middle
East, Mandates for Peace and Justice in Abrahamic Religions,
Globalization of Capital, Bringing Spiritual Wisdom Into Our
Workplaces, Professions and Schools, Negotiating with Evil
Rabbi Michael Lerner will address the gathering. He will be speaking
on the State of the Spirit and other subjects including the Middle
East conflict, Sunday, April 14th. Professor Cornel West of Harvard
University will be responding. The event will be held from 1:00PM ?
6:30 pm, in Belmont, MA
There will be seven open workshops on matters of spirit and
transformation after an address by Michael Lerner. Lerner is also
speaking at a conference on The Anatomy of Evil in Worcester on April
13th at Holy Cross College.
The April 14th event is co-sponsored by the New England branch of two
reform oriented religious groups The Tikkun Community and Call To
Action. Call To Action is a Catholic 25,000-member social action
group, which is planning to have the first area workshop on needed
reforms in the Catholic Church. Tikkun Community has emerged from
the approximately 10,000 readers of Tikkun Magazine and Lerner is
leading a workshop on how to find peace in the Middle East. Together
the groups are also having workshops on the (1) spiritual foundations
for peace and justice in the Christianity, Judaism, and Islam; (2)
how to wage peace in an atmosphere of war; (3) bring spirituality
into our workplaces, (4) globalization of capital, (5) negotiating
with evil.
Join TIKKUN COMMUNITY co-chairs Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cornel West
in a demonstration at the State Department in D.C. at 11 a.m. on
Thursday, April 11, or in similar demonstrations in NYC and S.F. that
same day. Sorry to inconvenience you during the work week, but the
slaughter is happening right now. Some of us may engage in
non-violent civil disobedience (depending on whether it makes sense
given developments till that moment), others will be there to
publicly support our call for an international force to intervene
immediately to separate and protect both sides.
This is the moment to act decisively. If you share our outrage at the
slaughter of innocents on both sides of this struggle in the Middle
East, then join us in putting our bodies on the line for sanity.
STOP THE KILLINGS ON BOTH SIDES!
Yes, we are glad that President Bush is calling for Israeli troops
and tanks to withdraw from Palestinian cities. But as long as they
remain ready to return the moment Bush's attention turns back to his
insane plan for a war against Iraq, Ariel Sharon will be able to use
the pretext of the (inevitable) next strike by Hamas (which benefits
every time their terror is rewarded by a strike by Israel at Hamas'
domestic enemy the Palestinian Authority) to return to complete the
devastation of Palestinian society. Only the presence of a
well-equipped and very large international force, led by the United
States, can actually achieve the goal of creating safety for the
Palestinian people. And only when that safety is achieved will Arafat
be able (or willing) to actually do something to stop terror, which
in the meantime appears to Palestinians to be the only way they can
retain their dignity in the face of humiliation and powerlessness.
But separation is not enough--peace requires that the international
community, acting through the UN, impose on both parties a settlement
of the conflict, based on Israeli withdrawal to the pre-67 borders
(with slight emendations to include Jewish sections of Jerusalem and
Gush Etzion), reparations for Palestinian refugees (and for Jewish
refugees from Arab lands), a Truth and Reconciliation commission, and
a new spirit of generosity and open-hearted repentance from both
sides for the evils they have committed. Both sides are responsbile
for the present mess, but they are unable to settle this without the
intervention of outside international leadership.
If you can't come to D.C., create some action in your own community.
A march to some nearby federal building, or get a group of people
together to form a local chapter of The Tikkun Community and call a
press conference in support of our demands, or suddenly appear inside
a federal building and get your message known, or do some other
dramatic but totally non-violent and non-property-destructive action.
One key guideline: make it clear that we are equally outraged at
Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians as by the human rights
violating daily assault on human dignity that is being carried out by
the Israeli army in its current rampage through Palestinian homes in
major cities. Far from providing security for Israel, Ariel Sharon is
guaranteeing the creation of yet new terrorists. We want to stop the
cycle--and to do that, we call upon the US through the UN to
intervene.
If you can't do direct action, you can do the following:
1. Send us $1,000, $500, $250 or whatever you can afford to help us
buy some ads in support of this message.
2. Join The TIKKUN COMMUNTY (go to www.Tikkun.org or call us at 415
575 1200 to give us your credit card information.
3. Go to the website and on the Home page www.tikkun.org go to the
section on The TIKKUN COMMUNITY and there connect with our media
project under Current Projects. Follow some of our ideas for how to
reach and challenge the media--so that they give a more balanced
coverage.
4. Come to volunteer time in our San Francisco office.
5. Help us create a national conference of students Oct 11-14 in New York City
6. Come to our activisttraining to be an activist--
* July 3-7 at Walker Creek Ranch an hour north of San Francisco
* Aug. 10-14 at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck New York
7. Help us reach out to opinion shapers in your community--so we can
break the hold of AIPAC and others in the Jewish establishment who
have managed to intimidate public officials into believing that they
can't speak the moral truths they see for fear that the Jewish lobby
will destroy their political future. The same dynamic impacts on the
kinds of people who get promotions in news agencies. Help us show
people in your community that another voice exists: help us make The
Tikkun Community an effective force for community education and
social action.
Whatever you do, many blessings to you.
As we approach the commemoration of the Holocaust, it is all the more
imperative that we not allow the memory of those who died be misused
to justify current immoral policies which, while not at the level of
Nazis or genocide, are nevertheless disgusting and likely to generate
shame among Jews for generations to come. We who love the Jewish
people must defend its interests by tryiing to change what Israel is
doing. And this is not just an imperative for Jews--Christians also
should be joining us and working for these same goals: because our
bottom line is that everyone on the planet deserves to be treated as
though created in the image of God.
--
Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus:
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>
