In this issue:

Bush's proposed assault on  Iraq must be stopped. We will be
bringing thousands of people into the streets in SF and NY this
weekend to protest the war that may soon be launched. 
        So why, at this time, did we also launch a criticism of one of the
groups in the anti-war movement?  In the statement below we
explain why we believe that doing so is part of broadening the
appeal of the anti-war movement--and that the timing was forced
upon us by International ANSWER's persistent anti-Semitism. 


         Of course, the media has tried to use this to hurt the anti-war
movement. But we think we've been rather clever in being able to
use those media moments to articulate the anti-war message and to
make clear why people must demonstrate this weekend. In fact,
we've gotten into venues that allow us to get the anti-war message to
many people who have never heard it put so clearly. And we have
already heard many people tell us that because of our voice they
now feel more able to come into the streets this weekend, knowing
that their concerns are being expressed and articulated, concerns 
that otherwise would have kept them from participating even though 
they too oppose the war. It is precisely because they've heard these
concerns validated by us that they can now feel good about being
more activist in opposition to the war.


             To understand this whole story more clearly, we invite you to
read our explanation of why all this happened now--just when our
energies need to be focused on building the anti-war movement.

************************************************************************
Why Rabbi Lerner Blew the Whistle on ANSWER's anti-Semitism : The Facts
                     (a report from TIKKUN)
            (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

The TIKKUN COMMUNITY has opposed the use of violence as a 
means for resolving conflicts, and has consistently opposed the war 
in Iraq. We will be bringing thousands of peoples into the streets this 
weekend in NY and SF to demonstrate non-violently against 
President Bush's  proposed assault on Iraq.

Because we oppose violence to resolve conflict, we organized in the
Jewish community and in other spiritual communities to bring people
 to the October 2002  demonstrations against the war, organized by
 ANSWER.  Rabbi Lerner was an original signatory to the Not In Our 
Name statement and endorsed the ANSWER rally.

But at that rally the ANSWER coalition put forward an array of 
speakers who used anti-Israel rhetoric to link the struggle against the
Iraq war to Israel-Palestine. And they talked about armed struggle
as if glorifying violence--whereas we are committed to non-violence.
This was offensive to a very large numbers of Jews  and people from
other spiritual traditions as well who attended the rally.

We at TIKKUN are very critical of Israeli policy toward Palestinians.
 We support an end to the Occupation, withdrawal of Israel to the 
pre-67 borders (with minor border modifications mutually agreed to 
by both sides), reparations for Palestinian refugees, an end to terror 
by both sides, and military arrangements for security for both Israel 
and Palestine. For this position, TIKKUN has been vilified in the
 organized Jewish community for being anti-Semitic and self-hating 
Jews. So we are particularly sensitive to not allowing those kinds of 
charges to be used when people are articulating legitimate criticisms
 of Israeli policy.


However, what demonstrators experienced at the ANSWER rally was
 something far different—a climate of hostility to Israel which can only
 be understood as a manifestation of underlying anti-Semitism. The 
ANSWER organization is dominated by a group of people from the 
Workers World Party who do not believe that Israel has a right to 
exist. Using their position as organizers (meaning, that they were the 
first ones to get the permit and announce these demonstrations), 
they have used the Iraq war demonstrations to recruit people to their 
narrow sectarian worldview.


Of course, Israel deserves criticism for its human rights abuses. We 
have done that consistently in Tikkun magazine, and in full page 
advertisements we bought in the NY Times, LA Times and S.F. 
Chronicle.   Yet so do the acts of terror against random Israeli 
civilians by groups claiming to represent the liberation struggle of the
 Palestinian people. But ANSWER has not permitted any critique of
 Palestinian violence—only of Israel. Moreover, while Israel's denial
 of human rights is worthy of critique, it is not more deserving of 
critique than the far greater acts of human rights abuses perpetrated 
by Saddam Hussein against his own people, and the genocidal acts
 of mass murder against the Kurds. But ANSWER did not permit any 
criticisms of Saddam Hussein. Nor of the human rights abuses of 
China in Tibet, Russia in Chechnya, or of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria,
 etc. 
       
Criticisms of Israel are not inherently anti-Semitic, they become
 anti-Semitic when raised in a context in which the topic is something
 else (say, war against Iraq), but the only country in the world being 
critiqued for human rights abuses is Israel. As we've argued 
elsewhere, it is not racist to critique Black crime in the U.S. in the 
context of discussing white crime. But it is racist if the focus suddenly
 becomes Black crime and there is no mention of the far greater 
reality of white crime. Singling out Israel in the context of a war rally
 about Iraq is racist. And so too is calling for "self-determination" of all
peoples in the world, but not including the self-determination of the
Jewish people. Yet many of the people in ANSWER’s leadership 
have made it clear that in their view Israel has no right to exist.

It was in the aftermath of this first demonstration that we at TIKKUN
 were faced with a real problem. How could we deal with the
 anti-Semitism that was being expressed at this demonstration, yet 
without undermining the struggle against the Iraq war?  Our first 
response was to simply ignore it, to hope that it would go away, and 
to not want to fight against ANSWER which, after all, had done the
leg work for getting the demonstration together. We encouraged 
people in the Tikkun Community to communicate their upset.

But when people told us that they were getting hostile responses
from ANSWER, we were left in a quandary: what to do about the next
 demonstration on January 18th.

We decided on the following path: we would work to bring people to 
the demonstrations and urge our tens of thousands of readers and 
others connected to the Tikkun Community to actively participate.
But at the same time, we would tell our community of our upset 
about the anti-Semitism and about the whole way that these 
demonstrations are organized (excessive rhetoric from speakers, 
rather than serious analysis of the war and significant responses to 
it—a parade of 50 speakers shouting slogans rather than presenting 
serious thought or analysis). Still, local Tikkun Community affiliates 
chartered buses to bring people, and we estimate that we brought 
several thousand people to the rallies in Washington DC and San 
Francisco in January.


Yet once again, the participants returned with a great deal of upset 
about the anti-Semitic way that Israel had been dragged into this 
event.  The discourse of blaming Israel had escalated, as did a 
climate of hostility that many demonstrators encountered from groups
that had set up tables or who were passing out leaflets. Free 
speech? Well, we seriously doubt that had there been groups setting
up tables or distributing leaflets calling for an end to women's rights 
or for gays to go back into the closet or for an end to Black liberation
that this kind of free speech would have been tolerated. Moreover, 
the Workers World speakers, who were presented as leadership of 
ANSWER, were continually asserting that those who were there 
demonstrating were demonstrating not only against Iraq but also 
against Israel. ANSWER organizers were sent through the crowd to
 collect monies said to be for the purpose of paying for the 
demonstration. Yet on their t-shirts was a slogan calling for the 
"liberation of Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river"—
in other words, the ending of the State of Israel. 

Many of us who are fighting for a two-state solution were made to 
feel that our association with this activity was being represented as
support for this anti-Israel hostility which was objectively anti-Semitic.
When asked whether they supported the right for Israel to exist, 
ANSWER's leadership said: "We should leave that to the people of 
the region."  That, of course, is  code for "no," because it is well 
known that the majority of the people of the region would not vote to 
support Jewish self-determination, any more than if we said let 
Tibet's independence be decided by the people of the region would
the Tibetans have a chance in a vote with a billion Chinese, or if we 
said let the Chechnya independence be determined by the people of
the region would they have a chance with the Russians making this
decision, nor would segregation in the South have ended had the
position been to allow the people of the South (people of the region) 
decide on rights for Blacks. These subtleties may be lost on
others—but they indicate the double standard and anti-Semitism
underlying this group's approach. Everyone else in the world has the
right to national self-determination, except for the Jews. So issues
that may seem like subtleties to others are immediately obvious to
many Jews who know that our existence and very right to exist as a
people has been in contention in the world for the past hundred 
years. No wonder that many Jews started to feel conflicted about
coming to these demonstrations.

So, at that point, Rabbi Lerner went more public with his criticism of 
ANSWER and its role in the anti-war demonstrations. He agreed to 
an interview with the New York Times in which he severely criticized
ANSWER’s anti-Semitism. Surprisingly, when the Times story came
out it ignored all of his criticism of anti-Semitism and only quoted a 
point he had made about the way the anti-war movement rallies 
were being suffused with irrelevant and off-putting rhetoric. 

We happily associated TIKKUN with another anti-war coalition, 
United For Peace and Justice. United for Peace and Justice was, 
along with Not In Our Name and a few other groups, joining with 
ANSWER to sponsor the demonstration on the weekend of February
16 in San Francisco. 

Lerner was invited to be on the Brian Lehrer show (WNYC) after a
 segment in which the national spokesperson for ANSWER was
challenged about anti-Semitism. In a candid statement of the position
of his organization, the spokesperson said that "we would not have a
pro-Israel speaker" at one of our demonstrations. Lerner critiqued 
this kind of Israel-bashing, insisting that there was a big difference
between being pro-Israel and being pro-Ariel Sharon and his 
repressive policies. Just as TIKKUN has had to argue against the 
attempts by Jewish right-wingers to say that TIKKUN and other 
progressive groups are anti-Israel when they publicly critique the 
Occupation, so TIKKUN has had to stand up against anti-Semites 
who make the same false equation and insist that one must be 
anti-Israel if one is critical of the Occupation. But most liberal and
progressive Jews do not fit this dichotomy—we are both pro-Israel
 and against the Occupation. We in the Tikkun Community are 
following a "progressive middle path" which is both pro-Israel and 
pro-Palestine.


After the Lehrer show, Lerner was informed by Tikkun's 
representative on the UFPJ committee working on the demonstration
 that his name had been brought up as a possible speaker by a
 non-Tikkun person, but that others had squashed the suggestion 
because they had entered into an agreement with ANSWER to not
allow any speakers who had publicly criticized any of the sponsoring
organizations.


Rabbi Lerner had never requested to speak. Despite recent attempts
to make it seem that his primary interest is promoting his own 
appearance at these events, he has had no particular desire to 
speak at these rallies because he feels that three minutes is not 
enough time to give any sort of substantive talk. His primary concern
is to address anti-Semitism within the movement and to strengthen 
the anti-war movement  in other ways as well so that it can more 
effectively express the aspirations of the American people for a world
of peace and justice.

As Rabbi Lerner has said repeatedly since that time, had he been 
rejected as a speaker because some thought he wasn't a smart or
effective as a communicator, he would have had no problem with the
whole process. But he was blackballed for something entirely 
different: he had publicly critiqued one of the groups organizing this
 rally—and his critique had been to stand up for an end to anti-
Semitism as it had been articulated by the ANSWER leadership in 
previous rallies. It was this willingness to critique ANSWER’s anti-
Semitism, when many fellow Jews have fallen silent for fear that they
would be labeled disruptive were they to publicly voice those 
questions, that is the specific behavior which made Lerner “a public 
critic” and hence not eligible to speak.  In this context, it makes little 
difference that the coalitions, hearing of this upset, decided to make 
sure that they would have other rabbis or Jews speak who would not
be likely to challenge their anti-Semitism in public.

In the next few days, Rabbi Lerner dedicated his efforts to trying to 
mobilize people against the Iraq war and to countering publicly the 
propaganda from Powell and Bush. But when Rabbi Lerner returned
 his attention to the demonstration, he wrote an op-ed critiquing 
ANSWER, but also critiquing the willingness of the other groups 
involved to accede to ANSWER's  conditions for work in coalition.

Lerner asked the following questions: Should a movement that 
professes a commitment to human rights, civil liberties, democratic 
ideals and diversity allow for the suppression of dissent within its 
own ranks? What kind of movement could agree to not allow people 
to speak solely on the grounds that at some previous moment they
 had criticisms of the movement's leadership?  Further, even if the 
movement had entered into agreements of this sort to suppress 
dissent, would it have kept those agreements if, say, the criticism had
 been leveled by the editor of the leading feminist or leading gay or 
leading African American organization-would that editor have been
 banned for that reason? Or, was it instead that the leadership of 
these other organizations were going along with ANSWER because
 they didn't really feel that the issue of anti-Semitism in the movement
 was such a big deal, and that raising it would destroy organizational
 unity?

Well, that is the response that he got. Lerner was told that the
 organizations involved felt that having unity with ANSWER was so 
hard-fought and such an accomplishment that it would not be worth it
 to challenge this agreement. Yes, Lerner was told privately, many of 
the partners in this coalition had their own criticisms, but it was more 
important to preserve unity.

Lerner's counter was this:

        1. The goal of TIKKUN's criticisms was not to advance 
organizational unity among leftie fringe groups, but to advance the 
actual real-world support for the anti-war movement. In the real world
 in which we exist, the Left’s  history of anti-Semitism, coupled with its
 mind-numbing rhetoric, has weakened the movement and made it 
impossible for many morally sensitive people to feel comfortable at 
these large demonstrations. Jews were not the only people being
 turned off by the anti-Semitism. So, we argued, attempting to raise 
this issue in a public way, while simultaneously urging people to 
support the demonstrations, was actually an attempt to broaden 
rather than narrow the base of support.

       2. When women, African Americans and gays raised these kinds
 of issues about insensitivity of the movement they were also met 
with hostility and the charge that they were undermining unity. Just 
as it is some Jews, even some rabbis, who might make that charge
 against TIKKUN today, so it was women, Blacks, and gays inside 
the anti-war movement of the 60s who OPPOSED raising those 
issues when they were raised by other women, Blacks and gays who
 said that they could be both supportive of the anti-war movement 
AND critical of its sexism, racism and homophobia. In fact, these
 critics turned out to be right. Their criticisms led to a deep change in
 the way that the anti-war people operated, and that made it possible 
for more women, gays, and peoples of color to identify with that 
movement. The criticism had been met defensively and condemned,
but it actually helped broaden and strengthen the movement. And 
that is exactly what we are doing in TIKKUN-supporting the 
movement, but insisting that the issue of anti-Semitism become a 
public issue to be discussed and challenged. And yes, there will be 
other progressive Jews who will feel that we should keep quiet for 
the sake of the greater good, and will thereby provide cover for 
ANSWER and for its anti-Semitism (though that is not their intention).

          3. The focus on presenting dozens of speakers at these events 
has been a response to this "organizational unity" concern, but not to
 the more important need to actually figure out an effective strategy to
 broaden support for the anti-war movement. The current leadership
 of all of these groups has presented few new interesting ideas about
 how to deal with the fact that the Democrats have largely gone along
 with the war (e.g. Senators Feinstein  and Biden plus many of the 
Democratic candidates for the presidency) and that even many of 
those who have uttered some questions (e.g. Congresswoman 
Nancy Pelosi, minority leader of the Democrats in the House) have 
not taken a principled oppositional role, but only questioned the 
timing and what allies we should have in the invasion of Iraq. (This is
 not the case for all Democrats—see, for example, the principled 
statement against the war that Congressman Dennis Kocinich makes
 in his article in TIKKUN Magazine’s March/April 2003 issue, which 
should be on the stands by February 25th).


  TIKKUN Magazine has put forward a variety of strategic ideas on 
how to strengthen the anti-war movement  (some of which are 
presented in the March and some in the May issues of the magazine
coming up).  But instead of embracing TIKKUN and seeking ways to
incorporate our perspective into the discussion, the rest of the anti-
war leadership has decided to circle the wagons around its support
for ANSWER, and to switch the entire discussion by claiming that the
only concern Rabbi Lerner had was to speak at this event. Others
have started a campaign of personal villification of Lerner--just as
the Right has done for the past sixteen years (because Lerner
remains the most prominent critic of Israeli policy toward
Palestinians in the Jewish world). 

         Try to imagine how stupid this is. TIKKUN Magazine is the only 
magazine in the entire Jewish world to have unequivocally 
condemned the war in Iraq. Instead of embracing it and the tens of 
thousands of people it represents as an important element in the 
anti-war movement, leaders of the other groups like United for Peace
and Justice and Not In Our Name have allowed the public discussion
to be fixated on Lerner's (actually non-existent) desire to speak at 
this event, rather than to publicly acknowledge that the issues Lerner
raised were legitimate and should be explored  Could you imagine if 
the one Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Greek, Latino, Presbyterian, 
Catholic, Lutheran, Unitarian or Muslim newspaper in America that 
opposed the war had made it possible for their editor to speak at
these rallies how stupid it would have to be to turn that down on the 
grounds of having previously criticized one of the organizing 
organizations? Would that show that the leadership was really 
interested in broadening the movement, or would it show instead that
the leadership was more interested in protecting itself, and had 
thereby shown itself to not really be caring about broadening the 
movement’s appeal?

        Would the whole matter have been dropped by TIKKUN had 
these groups turned around and offered Rabbi Lerner an opportunity
to speak (which they never did)? Absolutely not.  Rabbi Lerner 
responded to such suggestions by saying that he was not seeking to 
speak, he was seeking to challenge the insensitivity to the problems 
of anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing in the Left. The issue is not now 
and has never been Michael Lerner and his role-it is about the 
substantive ideas that Rabbi Lerner raises.

        So what would have been sufficient to quiet Lerner before the 
demonstration?

       Lerner was asked that question and here was his response:

     Let United for Peace and Justice and NION issue the following
 public statement:

"We acknowledge that there has been in previous demonstrations an
 insensitivity to the issue of anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing. 
Although we have decided to work with one of the groups that 
contributed to that atmosphere in previous demonstrations, we 
recognize that this is an important issue which deserves our public 
attention. So we hereby commit ourselves to an intensive process of 
internal education of our activists  and of dedicating serious attention
 at  our next mass rallies to educating the larger progressive 
community about the need to challenge and combat all ways in 
which legitimate criticism of Israeli treatment of Palestinians gets 
presented in anti-Semitic or Israel-bashing ways. "

       Variants of this statement were proposed to the leadership of the
anti-war rallies for the weekend of February 16th, and they 
responded by saying "No way can this happen. We feel it more 
important to keep unity with ANSWER."

      In that circumstance, Rabbi Lerner continued to voice his 
criticisms, even though others were acting as though his real agenda
was to get to speak or to undermine the demonstrations. On the 
contrary, at every occasion in which Rabbi Lerner has spoken, he
has insisted that the most important thing is to come to the
demonstration and to find other ways to publicly challenge the war
 against Iraq.

       We at TIKKUN support the demonstrations and appreciate the 
efforts of those who have worked to organize them, and intend to
remain a voice within the United for Peace and Justice despite our 
criticisms of how they have so far dealt with these issues. But we
completely reject the notion that these organizations ARE the anti-
war movement. There are tens of millions of Americans who oppose 
this war. Some of them have been convinced of this position by what
they have learned from the Tikkun Community, others from what 
they've learned in their churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. Others
 still have been encouraged by the teachings of progressives in 
universities or writers in the popular press. Still others are
 responding to the moral intuitions of their hearts. This broad group is
 not represented by any one or any set of organizations or coalitions,
 though sometimes some elements of this larger group do find 
expression through the coalitions or organizations. It is arrogant and
 ridiculous to imagine that critiquing these organizations or coalitions
 is tantamount to "hurting the anti-war movement."

       But one thing is certain: the anti-war movement has not yet been
 successful in finding a way to make its message politically effective, 
and that is why opportunists like Diane Feinstein and some of the
 liberals running for President in the Democratic party have been 
willing to support the war. Rather than push TIKKUN away, or 
demean the role of Rabbi Lerner, a serious leadership would attempt
 to include him and us in its decision-making, and, give serious 
attention to the perspective developed in Tikkun for how to reach out
 and reframe the issues around Iraq in a way that might build mass 
support for a peaceful approach. When such leadership emerges,
 we in TIKKUN will be responsive.  Meanwhile, we will be doing our
 part to engage the smartest and most creative strategic thinkers to 
engage in this conversation, a conversation to which anyone who
 agrees with the perspective we've outlined in this statement is 
invited to join by contacting RabbiLerner@tikkun.org. And we will 
continue to bring as many people as possible into the streets to 
challenge the war makers.

      We are still waiting for the organizers of this demonstration to 
make the statement suggested above-and to convene a public 
teach-in on the issues of anti-Semitism in their movement, and
 through that to generate a dialogue on these issues, in which The 
Tikkun Community would be happy to participate. In the end, we 
believe that the movement to build a different kind of world must 
reflect the world we seek to build, and for that reason we invite 
anyone who is committed to a world of justice, peace, open-
heartedness, love, generosity, and kindness to work with us.

         --February 13, 2003

P.S. One way to work with us is to actually JOIN The Tikkun 
Community—by going to www.tikkun.org, and signing up there. Our 
next major activity: a Teach-In to Congress on how to build safety 
and security for the U.S., and for Israel/Palestine—which will be held 
June 1-4 in Washington, D.C. We wish to bring people from every 
Congressional district in the U.S. to D.C. to build an alternative to 
AIPAC and to project a vision of how to build peace based not on 
domination and control of the other, but on kindness, generosity, 
repentance, and reconciliation. If you’d like to help us, please contact
Marisa@tikkun.org if you live East of Chicago, and 
Robyn@tikkun.org  if you live West of Chicago.