Forum
FORUM Subscriptions for Congregants How might I offer moment subscriptions to my congregants? My desire is to put one quality Jewish publication into as many of our congregation's households as...
...My wife's grandfather, trained in Poland to be a cantor, insisted, as a symbol of his own liberation in America, that a loaf of (presumably Jewish) rye bread be included on his Passover table...
...Most of my immigrant relatives were socialists...
...In Israel, Hebrew is the language of the people, the medium of social interaction...
...As a result of Lerner's terroristic methods Jewish journalism is deadened, not enlivened...
...These are people who are searching—that is the crucial word, "searching"—for new meaning in the ancient community and tradition...
...It was attitudes like these that motivated my grandparents to immigrate...
...As a feminist, a liberal and a Jew who believes in the instructions of Deuteronomy: "Therefore choose life that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed," I want Pogrebin to tell me where she got that figure...
...Such people find a voice, an argument, a wrestle that they can join—in the pages of Tikkun...
...Children naturally look to the school to provide them with important knowledge...
...There are three reasons for Tikkun's success...
...Yet you chose to caricature the magazine in the most gross sense as being run by a self-appointed prophet, out for his own ego gratification, who is something of a radical lunatic...
...I found the articles immensely helpful...
...Most of them stayed in Poland and the Ukraine, and some even returned there after experiencing the secularity of American Jewish life...
...In America, Hebrew is the language of the Jewish elite, actively used only in special environments—the synagogue, the study-hall or the enclaves of expatriot Israelis...
...We really have no need for a subscription to a magazine whose editor believes that we can be "kept on our toes morally" by the likes of Michael Lerner ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990) or Letty Cottin Pogrebin...
...It is all too easy for children to assume that information not taught in school cannot be very important...
...His column reawakened some of my own feelings of alienation from the organized Jewish community...
...One of the "facts" you got wrong was your portrait of Michael Lerner as the sole mover and shaker of Tikkun...
...By the time I came to know him, he had learned to conceal its grosser manifestations, but there can be no doubt that it existed and that it tainted not only the man himself but the quality of his scholarship...
...Eugene J. Fisher Director for Catholic-Jewish Relations National Conference of Catholic Bishops Washington, D.C...
...Laura S. Marcusa Ridgewood, New Jersey Reasons for Tikkun's Success There are important reasons for the extraordinary success of Tikkun magazine ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990...
...He works hard to attract and publish talented people, whether or not they hold his views...
...Coexistence of genius and lunacy, indeed...
...Rabbi Neil Sandler Tifereth Israel Synagogue Des Moines, Iowa We will make available to synagogues subscriptions to moment for $12 per year (new subscribers only...
...You imply that this pluralism is only nominal, but in my view Tikkun compares very favorably to moment when it comes to tolerance...
...It is their prophetic spirit that motivates the Tikkun vision for a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem...
...These values are necessary for the workings of a democratic society...
...My great-grandmother died of starvation in the Ukraine and my great-uncle decided to emigrate from Poland after a severe beating he received because he ate a few morsels of cheese he was transporting to market...
...Yet Farouk Kaddoumi, the "foreign minister of the PLO" and certainly one of the "architects of the Palestinian cause," told H. D. S. Greenway of the Boston Globe in January that he "does not accept Israel's right to its pre-1967 borders," that the first stage of a two-state solution would be "the 1947 United Nations partition resolution," and that even the 1947 lines would not be final because "what we accept today, we will not accept tomorrow...
...By coming together to articulate a fact that used to be obvious, i.e., that there exist shared values that are not "sectarian" but held in common by all, whether religious or secular, I believe that the bishops and rabbis who make up the Consultation have made a very helpful contribution to the public discussion of this most crucial issue...
...He states that women who bore titles in "Hellenistic Jewish communities" have nothing to do with "Palestinian Jewish synagogues" and that the Jewish temple in Leontopolis, Egypt, had no influence "on the development of Jewish law and practice in talmudic Palestine or its Babylonian offshoot," and he speaks of "rabbinic synagogues...
...Having done it, however, you should have held moment to far more rigorous standards than seem to have been applied to this profile...
...How does Pogrebin's assessment of Palestinian moderation square with Kaddoumi's declarations of Palestinian belligerency...
...There were also, of course, members of our family in Europe to whom the religion and the life of the shletl bore a positive valence...
...Joseph Campbell's Antisemitism In the June issue of moment, Professor Michael Wyschogrod, in his article "Genius and Bigotry: The Odd Coupling," writes, "Recently, Joseph Campbell, the scholar of mythology from Sarah Lawrence College, was also exposed as a racist and antisemite...
...CII 720, from Greece...
...The first is that there are thousands of American Jews who make up a growing movement for Jewish renewal—American Jews who are ready to wrestle fiercely and lovingly with Torah rather than turn away from it or bow down to it, who read it to connect spiritual depth with passion for justice, and who think it addresses universal issues from the perspective of a band of runaway slaves and demands that in every generation we do the same...
...Why do I still have the feeling that he liked us a bisl (a little...
...Yet, Mr...
...Kudos to Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz for courageously refusing to appear with Lerner on a program...
...If the earliest Jewish-Christians separated women from men, then why is there no evidence for separation until the church has rejected Jewish-Christianity and become a Gentile church...
...Public education offers a knowledge of the world that simply cannot be gained in a religious school...
...As someone who has had a great deal of magazine experience, you know the reality is far more complicated than that...
...This did not endear my relatives to traditional Judaism...
...Schiffman's distinction between proseuche (literally "prayer") and synagoge (literally "assembly") is linguistically inaccurate...
...His book shows him studying Jewish names, both given and chosen, also word usage in Jewish neighborhoods and places of occupation...
...Letty Cottin Pogrebin New York, New York Our source maintains that the figure of 20,000free subscriptions is correct...
...However, your report gives the misleading impression that the conference was organized by the Academy for the Hebrew Language when, in fact, it was conceived, developed and presented by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland...
...Were you trying to stir up controversy by trashing Tikkun} Were you attempting to get points in the Jewish world by saying, "Look how terrible Tikkun and its editor are...
...Your bringing up something Lerner wrote in the '60s is unacceptable...
...You know as well as I do that you can dig up dirt about anyone...
...Perhaps moment should do an article on those who are now editors of Jewish magazines who did not say anything outrageous during those times—because they were too afraid or too cautious or too uncertain or too balanced or too respectful or too patriotic or too short-sighted...
...Rather than relying on a supernatural power to purge the world of poverty and oppression, they felt we should take matters into our own hands...
...I don't want to do it...
...Those who attend religious school—and I make no distinction between Catholic and Jewish religious schools—prize isolation above all else...
...But, as the statement i () k i: m points out, "in recent years there has been a growing reluctance to teach values in our public educational system out of a fear that children might be indoctrinated with a specific religious belief...
...You make Lerner out to be a popular demagogue...
...Ethel C. Fenig Chicago, Illinois Pogrebin's Assessment of the Palestinians Letty Cottin Pogrebin (Column, June 1990) contends that "the major architects of the Palestinian cause have relinquished their all-or-nothing dreams and are prepared fo negotiate a settlement based upon the jbeaceful coexistence within a permanent two-state (not two-stage) solution...
...434435...
...those who did lowered their credibility rather than improve Lerner's, as you contend...
...Would it be possible to receive a particular back issue of moment as a sample for my congregants...
...As a historian of post-biblical Judaism, I study the vital Jewish communities found throughout the ancient world...
...Judith Romney Wegner Amherst, Massachusetts On Reading Articles in Tikkun No one can deny that Tikkun performed the positioning feat of the century with "all the rest is commentary" or that deep pockets are unfortunately de rigueur for Jewish publishing ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement,"June 1990...
...Or were you trying to get people to stop reading Tikkun, thereby increasing you own readership...
...The Attack on Tikkun Was Ugly Your attack on Michael Lerner ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990) was ugly, and I am embarrassed for you...
...Paul Lehrer Kendall Park, New Jersey The writer is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey.—Ed...
...Arthur Waskow Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Arthur Waskow is a member of Tikkun's editorial board—Ed...
...Israel's Military Force Letty Cottin Pogrebin proclaims (June 1990) that Israel is "the fifth strongest military power in the world...
...You failed to mention that Michael Lerner comes from a family of committed Zionists who raised much money and support for Israel...
...Who ranks nations in military strength...
...Dan Resneck Kokomo, Indiana Genius and Antisemitism I enjoyed Michael Wyschogrod's article on H. L. Mencken ("Genius and Bigotry: The Odd Coupling," June 1990...
...Having subscribed to Commentary almost since its inception—and moved with it from its original stance on the liberal left (when everyone understood that Jews were underdogs and when "liberal" was not yet a dirty word)—to a progressively more conservative position, I was originally pleased at the opportunity to read opposing views afforded by the launching of Tikkun, to which I immediately subscribed (and still do...
...In sum, Schiffman has not presented historically verifiable evidence to contradict the existence of female religious leaders within Judaism and other religions throughout the ancient Mediterranean...
...These people are rabbis, teachers, artists, liturgists, political activists, psychologists...
...Traditionally they were commonly presented in public education...
...102-109...
...My desire is to put one quality Jewish publication into as many of our congregation's households as possible...
...Rome: Pontifical Institute of Christian Archeology...
...Opinions like his had been forced on my family in Europe and drove them away from traditional Jewish life...
...Michael Lerner acted...
...Why should the Jewish communities of the East take priority over the thriving communities of Rome, Alexandria or Sardis...
...Michael Lerner uses leftist standards to define Judaism...
...It is for this reason that the Catholic community in this country has invested so much in its own educational system...
...Is that not simple human decency...
...While many of the facts in the article are true, the article is filled with half-truths and distortions...
...Let others with the money send their child to a hidebound religious school...
...It is as unseemly and unprofessional as if Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post, had used his pages to blast Max Frankel, editor of the New York Times...
...moment seems to have set out to discredit Lerner, not to describe him and his career in a fair, balanced way...
...They subscribe to it...
...Hebrew in America— What is at Stake...
...A critical tool in accomplishing this was a good education...
...The New Testament contains dozens of references to synagoge with that meaning.4 Ironically, when the word proseuche occurs twice in the Acts of the Apostles (16:13, 16), scholars have argued that it cannot have the technical meaning of Jewish place of worship because Acts mentions only Jewish women as in attendance and because synagoge is the usual technical term within Acts...
...9 (Cambridge: Harvard Univ., 1941), pp...
...J. Thackeray, ed...
...Schiffman's focus on Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean raises a larger historical question...
...This has been very difficult for all three of us...
...They write for it—or rather, they -unite it...
...Roy L. Feifer, D.D.S...
...Convinced that anything artificial in his body is harmful, he did not even replace them with the new plastic resin restoration materials...
...The poverty, however, was real...
...Thank you for your help...
...He is to be congratulated...
...And then, with typical undisguised cynicism, he could write in a footnote: "[T]here is always more or less Anti-Semitism afloat...
...Without them, it could not exist...
...Anyone who reads Lerner's editorials will see that they are cogently reasoned and raise all the hard questions...
...An article in the Los Angeles Times of February 7, 1987 (part II, p. 6), states: "Tikkun now distributes 40,000 copies, according to publisher and co-founder Nan Fink....Slightly more than half the present circulation is paid...Fink said...
...Bernadette J. Brooten, Ph.D...
...Shame on you...
...Thank you, moment, for your integrity...
...Slimy Article about TiUam For the life of me, I cannot understand why you wrote and printed such a muckraking article about Tikkun magazine and Michael Lerner in your June 1990 issue ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement...
...Yet it is also true that the large majority of Catholic youth are in the public school system and a goodly proportion of Jewish children as well...
...They undergird the Constitution and the Bill of Rights...
...Prager's advice and sacrifice my children's secular education for their religious one...
...Extremely Misleading I write as a member of the editorial board of Tikkun magazine...
...We would invite the comments and active support of your readers...
...58), issue of that periodical as well as Gill's elaboration of his charge of antisemitism (pp...
...It is unfortunate but true that the values Prager so justly praises have in the past decades often been used to suppress religious freedom and liberated thought...
...How else can you sell magazines and compete with the Jewish establishment...
...Baruch haShem...
...In recent years, Bobby has had all the metallic fillings in his teeth removed by a dentist...
...At age 15, Fischer became the youngest international grandmaster in the history of chess.* He held the world title between 1972 and 1975 and defeated champion Boris Spasky of the Soviet Union in the most publicized chess match in history...
...Executive Director Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Letty Cottin Pogrebin declined to respond to this Letter—Ed...
...If you would like sample copies of past issues to distribute, we will make them available in bulk, free of charge, plus $.50 each for shipping and handling...
...In re: "Celebrating 100 Years of Modern Hebrew" in Notes & News (June 1990), we applaud your coverage of the centennial and the conference "Hebrew in America: Perspectives and Prospects," which was convened on this occasion...
...He respectfully acknowledged his debt of scholarship to Abraham Cahan— "editor of the leading Yiddish daily in New York, and a distinguished writer in both Yiddish and English...
...Many of the Jewish leaders and those involved in the Jewish establishment have forgotten the value of equal justice for the stranger taught by the Torah...
...3 Jewish War 2,285, on a Jewish synagoge in Caesarea...
...Briefly, the statement by the Catholic and Jewish religious leaders comes to precisely the same conclusion about the bankruptcy of value-free education as does Mr...
...I was therefore astonished to read such an accusation...
...In my own family lore, there are much stronger memories about poverty and oppression from the Jewish religious establishment than from the Eastern European antisemites...
...Once upon a time, there was a moment magazine that would have enlightened and educated the Jewish community by examining those reasons...
...A Lesson of Value" argues that there are such "shared moral values" that can be actively taught in /public schools as "honesty, compassion, integrity, tolerance, loyalty and belief in human worth and dignity...
...To my grandfather, liberation meant the freedom not to go to shul As I have heard the story, when pressured into conducting a Passover seder one year, he responded, "Barukh aboo, ikh vill nil do" (Phooey...
...We have felt betrayed by the Jewish community in which our parents were respected leaders...
...Without them, it could not have existed...
...And I can assure you that I was as much a determiner of the magazine's policy, albeit not as public a person, as was Michael...
...Without them, it could not exist...
...1 (Cambridge: Harvard Univ., 1926), pp...
...The third reason is that Michael Lerner and Nan Fink had the vision, the energy, the chutzpah, the money and the willingness to spend it not on yachts but on the Jewish search for justice, the organizing clarity, the perception that something had gone awry in the guts of America and that people might buy a magazine that said so, the perception that something was still truthful in the kishkes of Judaism and people might buy a magazine that said that, the willingness to make mistakes and learn from them—all that, because it took all that to create the magazine...
...You could hate them and fear them, but you didn't have to deal with them every day...
...He may have deserved moment's criticism, but he did not deserve to be trashed...
...I had countered with the evidence for female religious leaders in ancient synagogues, early Christian churches, the Roman imperial cult and the religions of Isis and Sarapis...
...I suspect these problems have traveled in some families for many generations...
...Bobby Fischer fits his theory perfectly...
...2 (Cambridge: Harvard Univ., 1927), pp...
...You chose to focus on only those aspects of his past that could make him appear dangerous or unprincipled and thus undermine the trust of his readers...
...Of course, I do not always agree with Tikkun's positions either...
...I agree that women played a major role in the communal structure of the ancient Jewish communities of the Diaspora...
...J. Thackeray, ed...
...I have sent copies to two other women who are working out the consequences of sexual abuse...
...194-200...
...They have made an idol of Israeli policy...
...A bad-intentioned writer can take selective "facts" about his or her subject and present a one-sided misrepresentation...
...Knowledge Itself Carries Value Re: Dennis Prager's column in the June 1990 issue...
...Rabbi Burt Jacobson Kehilla Community Synagogue Berkeley, California Understanding Tikkun Your incisive essay on what makes Tikkun "tikk" was a delight ("Michael— His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990...
...I wonder, if Amos and Jeremiah were alive today, how they would view the actions of the Israeli government and military...
...and another claim that it "may" be folding, when Michael Lerner has made it clear to his subscribers that he intends to continue publication and had, in fact, . recently solicited donations to help secure Tikkun's future...
...Free Advertising * Michael Lerner should have paid for all the free publicity you gave his magazine, Tikkun ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990...
...Indeed, by deliberately excluding these shared moral values from the curriculum, the educational system actually undermines them...
...The antisemites were, at least, the yener (others...
...The tone of your article is snide and insinuating...
...Jews have valued public education highly for good reasons: It protects their freedom, it prepares them to defend the rights of American Jews, it lets Jews and Christians learn from each other, it levels the playing field for all...
...For us, as an American Jewish community, what is at stake is our access to the textual continuity of Judaism, the Torah shebiktav (the Written Law), as well as our access to the inner life of contemporary Israel, the Torah sheba 'al peh (the Oral Law, the Talmud...
...At times, that makes him difficult...
...Mencken and Yiddish I am saddened that H. L. Mencken's diaries reveal deep-seated antisemitism ("Genius and Bigotry: The Odd Coupling, "June 1990...
...Ruthe Samuels Richboro, Pennsylvania The Historical Evidence for Gender Separation Lawrence Schiffman's reply (Forum, April 1990) to my response to his article, "When Women and Men Sat Together in American Orthodox Synagogues" (December 1989), deserves further discussion...
...The question before us is historical, namely, what evidence exists for a separation of the sexes in the ancient synagogue...
...Michael Fisher Flushing, New York Michael Wyschogrod Replies: In the September 28, 1989, issue of the New York Review of Books (p...
...Such a slimy article only makes you appear to be jealous of Tikkun's success...
...On the contrary, evidence from all available sources and regions is admissible...
...As someone who has known and worked with Michael for several years, I can testify that he is strong-minded and passionate in his beliefs...
...See also the letter of Carol Wallace Orr in the November 9, 1989 (p...
...2 Every Good Man is Free, 81, on the synagogai of the Essenes, F. H. Colson, ed...
...H. St...
...That is why public education must be free of religion...
...I know that's not because Jews are stupid...
...I'm sure such an article could be written about you...
...Are discount subscriptions available...
...And, indeed, the grandchildren^and great-grandchildren of these immigrants are rather overrepresented in the fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology and political science...
...The second reason is that there are hundreds of thousands of American Jews who are a nascent community of "renewable Jews...
...The "leftist" (whatever that means) political approach is undeniably held by a part of the Jewish community, albeit a minority, concentrated among Jewishly uninvolved university types...
...Knowledge itself carries value, whatever Mr...
...I should say at the outset that I am a member of the Tikkun editorial board, however that may affect the purity of what I am about to say...
...Tikkun has been a fresh breeze in the Jewish intellectual community...
...I will send mine to a public school, a value-free school...
...Bertram Korn, Jr...
...One final word about the badmouthing of Michael Lerner...
...If we consent to work as historians, we are required to follow the accepted principles of historiography, which in this case means that we cannot base a historical discussion on the normativity of certain texts and of the communities which created them...
...Of course I knew he enjoyed his prejudices—he wrote so openly about many of them...
...It also enjoys a large non-Jewish readership and is read in most of the major institutions of power from the universities to the Congress of the United States...
...I am certain that other congregations have addressed this desire to you, and you must have developed several ways of addressing it...
...Bobby, whose mother was Jewish, idolizes Hitler and despises the Jews...
...Life 277, 280, 293, on the proseuche in Tiberias, H. St...
...CII 861, from Syria...
...Its causes remain to be investigated...
...But anyone familiar with his classic book, The American Language (Knopf, 1936), knows that Mencken was greatly interested in Yiddish and involved with Jewish speech habits...
...They were all killed by the Nazis...
...Anyone who reads this excellent magazine knows that all points of view are represented, including those of Michael's strongest and most conservative opponents...
...Aside from our institutional interests in being recognized for sponsoring the conference, there is an important message underlying this issue of sponsorship...
...Consequently, the issues we need to struggle with here are totally different from those that the Academy is dealing with in Israel...
...By pondering in print what many have contemplated, Michael Lerner's Tikkun creates an electronic billboard of current musings on Jewish thought about diverse issues...
...In the end, Schiffrnan's distinction does not actually bolster his argument, since Palestinian and Babylonian communities do not yield greater evidence for a separation than do the Jewish communities to the west of ancient Israel...
...Mark 1:39...
...Prager in his column: "In fact, public schools do teach values all the time—but they are not the core moral values...
...Schiffman does not cite any new evidence for an early Christian separation of the sexes but rather refers only to evidence cited by me and by Ze'ev Safrai (in his informative response...
...He has been deeply concerned by the refusal of successive Israeli governments to deal with the issue of the Palestinians...
...16), Brendan Gill wrote: Campbell's bigotry had another distressing aspect, which was a seemingly ineradicable anti-Semitism...
...who would like to think that Jewish tradition and modern Jewish historical experience and their own Jewish memories can have serious meaning for them but are not yet sure...
...Wyschogrod asks, "Why are there highly educated and talented people who are antisemites...
...These leaders often justify anything and everything that the government of Israel does in the name of Jewish survival...
...Although most do retain strong ties to the Jewish community, it is the tradition of scholarship and social activism in the Jewish tradition that most firmly draws our loyalty...
...Michael Lerner has shaken up the Jewish world exactly when it was in dire need of such an experience...
...I find it sad that the editor of one of the few remaining American liberal Jewish magazines has joined the chorus of those in the Jewish establishment who are venting so much bile at Michael Lerner and Tikkun ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990...
...What is Lerner's big crime...
...Associate Professor of Scripture and Interpretation Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, Massachusetts 1 On synagoge, see Jean-Baptiste Frey, ed., Corpus Inscriptionum tudaicarum (CII), 2 vols...
...He accepts criticism with the spirit of one who truly wishes to learn from his mistakes...
...That their work may have contained ethical flaws as well as scientific ones is obvious—but, in fact, the rabbis have not done better on that score, nor, in the shtetl, did they have much tolerance or respect for such secular and heretical pursuits...
...So I will not take Mr...
...I was amazed at the level of writing—feminist poems that spoke to my heart and brave articles daring to speak to the hidden side of my inti/ada-troubled soul...
...Unfortunately, the only moment we have at this moment preferred to waste space by bad-mouthing Tikkun's editor...
...Michael Lerner has been a committed Zionist his entire life...
...On proseuche, see CII 1440, 1441, 1442, 1443, from Egypt...
...Margate, Florida 'Fred Waitzkin, Searching for Bobby Fischer (Penguin Books, 1988), pp...
...To those like us, the accomplishments of Freud, Marx and Einstein were, unquestionably, products of Jewish values and Jewish tradition...
...2), vol...
...Then there are his half truths about Commentary, his phony underdog status, his whining when the world does not operate according to his ideas and his manipulative, questionable hype and methods...
...He answers it by stating, "Genius of all kinds can coexist with lunacy and evil...
...Schiffman responded, "I take the view that the 'synagogue' in the Hellenistic world, as reflected in the inscriptions she studies, is the Jewish community, not the place of worship (usually known as prosuche [sic—the correct Greek term is proseuche, B.J.B.] in Greek, not synagogos [sic—the correct Greek term is synagoge, B.J.B...
...The literature of the subject is very large, but virtually all of it is worthless...
...After much lively discussion, the ongoing Consultation between representatives of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Synagogue Council of America, chaired jointly by Archbishop William Keeler and Rabbi Jack Bemporad came out, coincidentally this June, with an important statement on moral values in public education...
...The role of Hebrew in America is quite different from its role in Israel...
...You also made a claim that he gave away 20,000 free subscriptions—which is not true—to erode readers' sense that Tikkun is popular and respected...
...What proof does Professor Wyschogrod bring to support that claim...
...A Hatchet Job on Tikkun Although readers know that a columnist does not necessarily agree with the editorial slant of the publication in which her writings appear, I want to make that point especially clear with respect to the article about Michael Lerner ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990...
...Extensive evidence in ancient Jewish inscriptions,1 Philo of Alexandria2 and Flaviusjosephus3 demonstrates that both terms commonly designated a Jewish place of worship...
...56-57...
...He even disparages the reverence for scholarship in the Jewish religious tradition, pointing out that it may become a vehicle for encouraging learned people to hide from the task of improving the world...
...I want that voice heard...
...His understanding of the centrality of values in true education—which he articulates so well—is remarkably similar to the traditional Catholic understanding of education as well...
...It certainly demystified for me some things I had not fully understood about the magazine and its editors...
...trans., Josephus, vol...
...Greenway noted that Kaddoumi's declaration adds "fuel to the argument that a two-state compromise would only be a stepping stone to the eventual destruction of Israel...
...The reasons for it that Jews commonly accept are almost as dubious as those advanced by anti-Semites...
...In short, he probably spent a lot of time among us...
...Stewart Albert Portland, Oregon Tikkun's Electronic Billboard I am a recent subscriber to Tikkun ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990...
...Matthew 4:23...
...1; 1952, vol...
...Hershel Shanks ("Michael—His Magazine and His Movement," June 1990) blandly states that Lerner "enlivens Jewish journalism," then nicely documents how Lerner, as is typical of the Left (and also of the far Right), unable to tolerate dissent of any kind, uses McCarthy tactics such as the threat of a lawsuit to suppress the truth...
...Richard A. Siegel, Executive Director National Foundation for Jewish Culture New York, New York Sexual Abuse Articles Helpful I would like to thank Sharon R. Lowenstein and Rabbi Irving Greenberg for their articulate and caring discussion of sexual abuse in the April 1990 issue of moment ("Confronting Sexual Abuse in Jewish Families" and "Rabbis Can Help by Speaking Out...
...That he is aggressively self-promotional...
...8c trans., Philo, vol...
...It has been difficult to feel good about our Jewish roots under these circumstances...
...Celia Blatt Lancaster, Pennsylvania Is Jewish Journalism Deadened or Enlivened...
...Luke 4:15,16...
...More than half the Catholic colleges and universities in the world, for example, are in the United States...
...Lerner should be judged by what he is doing now and not by what he said 20 years ago...
...Rabbi William Blank Sacramento, California Does Lerner Keep Us on Our Toes Morally...
...In any event, I feel it was journalistically treif to do a hatchet job on the editor of a periodical that is seen by many to be competitive with moment...
...I believe that this statement, "A Lesson of Value," might be of interest to readers of moment...
...Schiffman had written that women did not take a leading role in ancient near Eastern religions, except "in fertility or sexually oriented cults" to FORUM continues on page 60 support his argument for a gender separation in the ancient synagogue...
...We do want to reach out.—Ed...
...Instead of dealing with the substantive issues that Lerner articulates in a reasoned way, you have chosen to attack Lerner personally...
...Our attitudes toward Hebrew, therefore, need to be carefully analyzed and considered because they will have grave implications for the future direction of American Jewish life...
...Big deal...
...He equates the contemporary Jewish appreciation and passion for quality secular education with idolatry, brands it as "value-free" and has the unmitigated chutzpah to imply that the main obstacle to the quick arrival of the messiah is the tendency of American Jewish parents to send their children to public schools rather than yeshivot...
...Prager's Column Reawakens Feeling of Alienation Dennis Prager's column in the June 1990 issue smacks of the very kind of insularity that drove my family out of the shtetl to America at the turn of the century...
...Prager may say...
...Lerner confuses Judaism with the far Left and accepts—indeed intensifies—its anti-Jewish negativism...
...Although partially imposed by the great antisemitic tradition of Europe, this poverty was also abetted by the inability and/or unwillingness of that generation of Jews to take advantage of those aspects of secular education and experience which were available to them...
...We called Tikkun to ask if it would disagree with our figures, but it declined to comment.—Ed...
...However, he is also a fair, moral man, a risk-taker and an editor who has been scrupulous about doing outreach to writers who are gay, feminist or critical of him, whether from the Right or Left...
...1936, vol...
...We must all work together to find solutions and strengthen the Jewish family that we all cherish...
...60-61...
...You equate the magazine with him and disregard that I had anything to do with the magazine except to fund it...
...They are not sure because in their own life histories, alongside a few moments of feeling stirred in intellect, spirit or emotion by a Jewish act or event, they recall many, many moments of feeling drained and deadened and stupefied and ignored by Jewish organizations that claimed a monopoly on Jewish correctness or authenticity...
...These people find Tikkun a place, to explore and pursue their vision...
...Zackary Berger Louisville, Kentucky Values Should Be Taught in Public Schools I write in appreciation of Dennis Prager's fine column in the June 1990 issue...
...You portray Tikkun as if it were just a voice for Lerner's ideas...
...Perhaps my three rejection slips bias my perception, but I have yet to meet anyone who will admit to completing and understanding even a single article that has yet appeared in Tikkun's pages...
...He has experienced a great deal of inner turmoil, as many of us have, at the way Israel's government and military have been brutalizing Palestinians during the intifada...
...When there is Yitzhak Shamir, why should liberals chew up liberals...
...Nan Fink Berkeley, California Nan Fink is the former publisher of Tikkun.—Ed...
...Yet I was there working as hard for the same vision (a vision which was mine as much as Michael's), until I resigned in January 1990...
...Above all, the tone of the article is extremely misleading...
...Acts 13:14...
...Ralph L. and Vivian Kolodny Quincy, Massachusetts Some readers may find it ironic, in view of some of the foregoing letters, that moment has lost subscriptions for its praise of Michael Lerner's Tikkun.—Ed...
...This fits nicely with our figures...
...He is convinced that Jews are controlling the country and that the Shoah is a myth...
...Betty Kurwich Zoss Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts Letty Cottin Pogrebin Replies: The source for the statistic that Israel has the fifth most powerful military force in the world came from the Strategic Institute in London and has been quoted by Abba Eban and by Yehoshafat Harkabi in his book Israel's Fateful Hour (Harper &f Row, 1988...
...He quoted entire sentences in Yiddish and compiled word-lists...
...trans., Josephus, vol...
...Michael Lerner is a man of decent character...
...We are too noisy, too aggressive and always out just for ourselves...
...Joe McCarthy went after an older generation of ex-radicals in exactly this manner...
...I am proud of the Jewish heart that wrote the articles...
...I always had the impression that Professor Campbell was the ultimate atheistic secularist who regarded all religions and prejudices with benign but bemused disdain: as if a serious belief in religion or maintaining prejudices were beneath the dignity of rational, thinking, analytic and educated people...
...What they forget—or deliberately obscure—is that the United States government was doing outrageous things then—among others, sending to their deaths for no good reason the tens of thousands of people whose names now blackly brood on that scar in the earth, the Vietnam Memorial...
...Fischer to this day is an avowed antisemite...
...Besides, your criticism has an echo in the way fancy antisemitic WASPs always put Jews down...
...One issue of moment was more than enough...
...1 reprinted with prolegomenon by Baruch Lifshitz (New York: KTAV, 1975): CII 1404, a synagogue inscription from Jerusalem during the time of the Second Temple...
...Some people think it is scandalous that he said outrageous things 20 years ago...
Vol. 15 • October 1990 • No. 5
