Contact information for Rabbi Emeritus Lynn Gottlieb:

305 N Poli St.

Ojai, CA 93023 

phone: 805 415 5388
email:

A message from Rabbi Emeritus Lynn Gottlieb, 7/23/06:

Holy Land Interfaith Peace Appeal

Dear friends,

We bow our heads in mourning for the newest victims of Middle East violence. Hundreds of civilians now lie in fresh graves in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza.  In this time of escalating violence, we call on our interfaith partners to deeply consider the way in which each tradition may either support the forces of peace making or aggravate the forces of violence through the use of the language of prejudice.

In war, the temptation is to objectify an entire people as 'the enemy' and thus give ourselves permission to engage in acts which would otherwise be considered atrocities.  These are profoundly divisive times when negotiations have given way to bombs and the slow and painful work of building civil society is crumbling before those who choose the language of brutality and hate.  How many more innocents shall we sacrifice on the altar of justified war?

There are many groups urging a variety of responses to the escalating violence in Israel, Lebanon and Gaza that include the sending of high level US and UN envoys to the region to begin negotiating an immediate cease fire.  As for those of us residing in North America, let us do all we can to prevent the rise of ugly words and actions toward Jews, Muslims and Christians while this conflict rages on.  Let us bring our communities together to regard the peacemaking aspects of our traditions.

At the same time let us call upon our government to work for an immediate end to hostilities.  The past fifty years has taught us that war, military occupation, suicide bombing, targeted assassinations, home demolitions, the daily humiliation of checkpoints, the crippling of communal infrastructures, the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the widespread use of torture by governments of all sides has done nothing to make populations more secure.  Rather, the instruments of brutality have acted as a prod to the forces of extremism. As people of faith can we not find another way?

Let us resist the logic of war and struggle to find our way toward justice and peace through non-violence for the sake of our children and our children's children.