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| Working to find the middle ground By Natana Deutsch Desert Sage Editor Tikkun Magazine founder and editor Rabbi Michael Lerner visited New Mexico last month, bringing a centrist message and a vision of peace. In a two-hour talk that spanned 2,000 years of history and challenged conventional Jewish and Muslim ideas about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rabbi Lerner invited his audience to re-examine their views. “The power and domination over others is not the only power in the world,” Lerner told the crowd of almost 300 people gathered at the Jewish Community Center on April 27. “The greatest security of the Jewish people will come from a world of peace and generosity.” Our task (at Tikkun) is to build the psychological and spiritual support of those who would take a peaceful approach.” A recognized liberation theologian, Rabbi Lerner launched Tikkun Magazine in 1986 as an alternative to increasingly conservative political leadership within the Jewish community. Tikkun is a Hebrew word that means to heal, repair and transform the world. Rabbi Lerner is well-known for his progressive middle path. “There is no way to be pro-Israel without being pro-Palestinian, and vice versa,” he said. “The fate of these two people are intrinsically linked.” As are their histories in the Holy Land -- an element that is often disputed and an issue to which Lerner devoted much of his discussion. He offered the audience a well-rounded examination of the historic events surrounding the creation of a Jewish state, the Zionist movement which was born out of centuries of continued persecution in Europe. “In that context, many Jews decided the creation of a national state was the solution,” Lerner said, and they saw Palestine as a land that was waiting for them. “The problem was that there was a people already there and we didn’t recognize it.” In 1880, Lerner said, more than 500,000 Arabs were living in Palestine. The Jewish settlers who came during that time espoused Socialism, a political philosophy that was very threatening to the rulers of the Arab world, and thus prompted a resistance. That chafing did not extend to the general Arab populace until the early 20th century, when, Lerner said, Jews began to buy up large tracts of land for kibbutzim from long-absent landlords, essentially taking the land out from under Palestinian families who had lived there for generations. “Jews came to (Palestinian) residents and told them, ‘We bought this land, now get out,’ ” Lerner said. The Jewish perspective, Lerner said, was of a people just wanting to live a regular life, to develop industry and a Jewish labor movement and a community where they were not treated as the “demeaned others,” because of their religion, as they had been in Europe. “It was totally understandable and totally reasonable,” Lerner said. “After 1,900 years of persecution, we needed our own Jewish institutions.” The relationship of capitalists coming to take over peasantry was not new, Lerner said. It was happening in Europe. But the face that it took in Palestine was the face of the Jews. Peasants saw it as, ‘The Jews are coming to throw us out,’ not the capitalists are coming to throw us out, and it scared them, he said. The Jews interpreted the Palestinian resistance through the history of their European experience of persecution; while Palestinians saw the issue as being dominated, Lerner said. “What I’m trying to do is get you to see both sides,” Lerner said. “To really understand this conflict, you must understand that there was not one group of evil people and one group of righteous victims. There were decent people on both sides who had legitimate concerns and couldn’t understand why people were acting the way they were.” This struggle accelerated dramatically during the Holocaust, when hundreds of thousands of Jews wanted to immigrate to Palestine, and reached a crisis level following the establishment of Israel in 1948, Lerner said. “We were a people who jumped from the burning buildings of Europe and landed on the backs of Palestinians,” he said. “It wasn’t intentional, but in the process we hurt other people. We’ve never been able to acknowledge that ... and we need to take care of it.” Lerner also discussed the peace negotiations of the last decade, the progress made under Yitzhak Rabin, the downward spiral since his assassination and why, without a viable solution to the issue of the 3 million Palestinian refugees, there will never be a peace agreement. The recent escalation of tensions has reinforced the most extreme elements of both societies, and will perpetuate a cycle of violence until an outside force intervenes, Lerner said. “It’s going to take the U.S. coming in with other countries and saying, ‘This has to stop. End the occupation.’ ” “The domination and control (method) won’t work,” he continued. “We need a different approach, a peace-oriented approach.” It may mean waiting for one generation to die and a new generation that rejects the current policies to take its place before that happens, he said. In the meantime, Lerner said, Tikkun will continue its work. Lerner sharply criticized those voices within Jewish leadership who contend that Jews who don’t support the policies of the Israeli government are anti-Israel. “It makes them feel as if they have to choose between their own Jewish sensibilities and their allegiance to the state of Israel,” he said. “What that policy is doing is driving Jews away from their Judaism.” Hearing that message was crucial, said attendee Iris Keltz. “He gave Jewish people permission to be critical of Israel, and it doesn’t mean you’re anti-Semitic or a self-hating Jew,” she said. Keltz is a member of the Arab-Jewish Peace Alliance which, along with the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Albuquerque, arranged Lerner’s talk at the JCC. “I decided it was time for him to speak at the Federation,” Keltz said of organizing the Albuquerque event, “to people who aren’t exposed to a broader perspective on the situation in Israel and Palestine.” For more information on Tikkun, visit www.Tikkun.org | |||||||||
